IT Grades Itself Too Generously
Recent findings about ROI studies wouldnt surprise schoolteachers. They know that most students would grade themselves higher than is perhaps warranted.
Enterprises conducting their own ROI studies also are too generous, with 59 percent giving themselves a positive result, found Jupiter Media Metrix Inc. in a survey of 471 IT executives. Only 5 percent of do-it-yourself ROI studies report a negative result. Analysts at the New York company say that more often than not, self-conducted ROI studies are misleading.
Companies seem reluctant to let outsiders judge their return on e-business projects. Only 17 percent reported using one or more outside companies to conduct or oversee an ROI study. Of those doing internal studies, the highest portion—33 percent—use the project team itself to evaluate its own work.
Buyers Prefer Speed to Flash
Enterprises interested in driving traffic to their Web sites should not bother investing in rich-media presentations or wireless download capabilities. Instead, according to a recent survey by Jupiter Media Metrix Inc., in New York, they should first focus on performance.
The survey of U.S. consumers found that only 20 percent would be motivated to revisit a site by its use of rich media such as Flash or video. But 40 percent would visit a site if its pages loaded fast.
Consumers also said theyre attracted by sites that allow them to customize layouts and by content-oriented sites that feature polling or chat capabilities.