Interwoven bathes in Internet renaissance
Interwoven bathes in Internet renaissance
Interwoven has been overwhelmed by the rapid take up in its web site solutions over the last year which it believes is because ideas are now built based on the desire to satisfy customer needs, instead of fantasies about unrealistic business prospects.
During the dot.com boom and bust era, too many businesses created web sites based on the hope that an influx of customers would eventually pay for the upfront costs. This did not happen in a lot of cases, so many collapsed.
According to Richard Collins, the managing director of Interwoven, the company is experiencing a situation where many businesses have seen that their solutions, such as TeamSite, have worked effectively over the last 7 years, so they are now confident about taking on a web solution that can make a radical different to their business operations, as well as saving costs.
"The reason for the boom and bust before was because the demand was built by IT companies not thinking about users as the core basis for success. So we had a "built it and they will come" scenario, and when people didn't come to the web, the whole thing collapsed. And I think what we are seeing now is that strategy is being driven now by the customer base. Solutions are built to fit a specific need. Other problems included slow dial-up lines and a general lack of literacy with the Web.
"But now the growth is a lot more stable because it is driven by the customer, commercial demand and broadband is so much cheaper too."
Andrew Antal, the alliance and marketing director for Interwoven also believes that a lot of the customers who are recovering from the dot.com era are now saying that the web site is a vehicle that they can use far more effectively.
"A lot of companies are asking how they can reduce their costs. They think that if they can provide more information and more content on their web sites, it will then deflect someone away from calling their call centre, so they can rely on the web site to find out more information. This means that they do not have to spend so much money on their call centres. The first step is to enrich the web site to reduce costs in other areas. The second stage is to increase the revenue though the use of the web site.
"For instance, Qantas, which uses TeamSite, has increased its revenues with domestic bookings by 30 percent over the last year through the use of its web site. A lot of customers are moving towards that kind of method. Broadband is making it easier for companies to do work over the net. It's exploding now. Look at how Telstra has reduced the costs of broadband by more than half. This makes it more accessible, and that's why there is a sudden growth of use again. The Roads and Traffic Authority of NSW also uses TeamSite to allow people to apply for new car registrations online in five minutes, which used to take one or two hours."
Interwoven has gone from having five transactions a quarter to 26 transactions per quarter over the last twelve months. These have been for its three main software solutions: TeamSite (enterprise content management package), WorkSite (document management package, acquired by iManage) and MediaBin (digital asset management package, acquired by MediaBin). Interwoven hopes to one day offer all three as a joint solution for customers as the boom keeps on building.
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