As marketers, we don't always look at the technology issues behind the scenes of our interactive channels, but since most are digitally based, we can't bury our heads and ignore the business impact of underlying technical decisions. Today's marketers have to build an interactive channel directly to their IT departments. Without it, it's impossible to optimize your user experience, reduce your costs, maximize your reach or even set your pricing strategies.
This Information Week article, entitled Google App Engine Price Hike Stuns Developers is a great example of the interdependencies of interactive channels on technology decisions. Many app and Web development and distribution platforms (both desktop and mobile) are free or low cost. And many of them are good. But, a business is a business and everyone has to make money. So if you are building your interactive channel strategy and your pricing or service cost models are based on today's platform or tool pricing - stop, take a hard look, and ask if the current pricing is sustainable. While you're at it, if you are looking at open source tools, ask your IT team if the code base will develop fast enough to keep up with your business or marketing objectives. Software by committee always takes longer to develop.
The Cloud is here and with it come many opportunities, but oftentimes, with SaaS and PaaS services, the real costs of doing business are not clear until service levels scale. In this Google App Engine example, even with prior warning, people were surprised by the change, which in some cases doubled the cost of using their App Engine. This can be a huge profit hit to monthly subscription services or low-cost consumer Web apps or services. No one can plan for every inevitability, but a few questions and a few hours of due diligence alongside your IT counterparts can ensure you have a sustainable interactive channel strategy.
