"It's more important than ever." We hear and say that a lot about concerns and priorities.  We're also going through an uncertain time that has definitely re-framed the notion of priority and importance from both a personal and business perspective.  Specific to online services, we've always known that to be true, but with recent data, and easily predictable changes in behavior, online gets more important every day.

Internet Traffic Trends by Industry

The plan put out by Governor Baker in Massachusetts yesterday is both pragmatic and optimistic. It's hopeful for a return to more in-person activities being possible, and that's great news. It also has some assumptions about mitigating risk and new requirements for interactions that further increase the importance of the online channel as part of this solution.

Opportunity is Easy to See in Retrospect

Buy on the dip, when there's blood in the water... In the few investment decisions I've personally made, I'm about 60/40 on stocks that went up or further down. It's easier said than done and impossible to adopt as your strategy. Actions need to be more thought out and rely on more than just luck & timing - although those help.

It's definitely hard to pull the trigger in the midst of a situation when it's your business, your savings, your career and multiple other aspects of stability or success at stake. Across the board, we’ve all paused to focus only on mission-critical aspects of the business, tried to anticipate what could go wrong in order to mitigate risk, and tried to identify any opportunity to become more efficient and maybe even pivot. At Cloud we have a "doing now" and a "not doing now" list going so it is clear on where we're focusing, and although it was smaller, there is a also a "not going to do anymore" list.

We always knew the importance of an online presence - that issue was closed in the last century. What has never clear and has always been a struggle is when to do something. The term "table stakes" has often been used to talk about what's become so ubiquitous that if we're just talking about it at that moment, we likely waited too long. Of course technology and business plans are also littered with people who were before their time, and then others who just came in, did the same thing and timed it better. This is the business strategy modeled on the "repeat my joke and get more laughs" phenomenon...

Mission Critical is Redefined

It's simple, mission critical functions are probably covered and running by now. Your physical presence, unless essential, is not as viable as online, and may never be again. Your online presence has gaps, unless you're perfect. These gaps that were easily overcome before, are more glaring now. Closing them quickly is the new table stakes. That is our new mission critical. Is this obvious? Probably. I've spent a career preaching to the choir, but so far we're just saying the equivalent of "buy low, sell high." How do you decide what to do now, versus later, or never?

Invest now, or later? Is it too soon, or too late?

Those are more complex questions, but if there is an upside to this environment, it's that it has started to take the risk out of action because inaction is probably more dangerous than before.

• Should you start that redesign now? The only better time than right now to plant a tree was in the past.
• If not that, consider spot fixes, optimizations? Of course, if something is broke or not perfect, it matters much more now.
• Missing functionality that wasn't a priority before because people liked doing it in person - definitely time to fix that.
• Upgrading your back end because some systems are reaching end of life, but are running fine? Security and integrity only become more important.
• Reducing technical debt across the board? Well, you already know you should have been doing that too.

Consider all of these things for your digital presence, with a focus on speed and value to both you and your users. The experience a user has now, especially in terms of functionality and ease, will make the difference on whether they come to you, or consider someone else when they have a choice.

Cloud Construct has made a career and many long term relationships by helping clients cut through the clutter by prioritizing and focusing on real needs and providing options and information to make the right decision. Let us know if we can help you.

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