Web Site 101
John Bendel
Technology Editor
If you're in business, you need a web site. In fact, it should be one of the first things you do - right after putting your name on the side of that first truck. If you don't have a web site, you just aren't serious - at least that's a common perception.
Some business people still disdain the Internet; they wear the attitude as if it were a badge of honor. A dozen odd years ago, the same people were proud that they knew nothing about computers. They bragged that their offices ran just fine with typewriters and paper files.
Well, they've all got computers now, and if they've learned anything, they'll get their business on the Internet. The element of the Internet known as the World Wide Web has been around for a decade now, and it has truly revolutionized the way business is done. Ignore it and you'll be left behind like yesterday's newspaper.
In business today, a web presence is more important than a phone book listing. Most business people spend their days in front of computers linked to the Internet. If it isn't a desktop computer, then it's a laptop, a handheld or a tricked-out cellphone. If they want your company's phone number, they're more apt to type your name into a search engine - or Google it - than they are to pull out a phone book.
A web site doesn't have to be a flashy or animated; it doesn't have to tell customers where their freight is or how much their account is in arrears. It can be as simple as a business card with your company's name, specialties and contact information.
WHAT A WEB SITE CAN DO FOR YOUR BUSINESS
A basic web site succeeds if it simply helps people find your company. More ambitious web sites fill a wide variety of needs, from load tracking to automated document retrieval. A good, customer-oriented site will benefit both the customer and the fleet. Customers will be able to retrieve information quickly, without being put on hold or waiting for return calls. Fleets will not have to deal with those customer calls, thus freeing up administrative resources and saving money. In many fleets, web sites have substantially lowered the ratio of back office employees to drivers, easing the challenge of expansion among other things.
Typically, a fleet web site is launched to satisfy customer demand - to provide shipment status, for example. If it's a truckload, where is the truck? What is its estimated time of arrival? For LTL and private fleets that do not track individual small shipments in real time, a web site can display at least some status information. Has a shipment left the pickup terminal? Has it been loaded on a truck for local delivery?
The most comprehensive, cutting-edge web sites are run by the biggest players. On the truckload side, for example, that means Schneider National, Swift Transportation and others. On the LTL side it's carriers like Yellow Roadway, ABF and Overnite. The most functionally dazzling sites belong to carriers of the smallest shipments, UPS and Fedex. Both offer an extraordinary amount of information, quickly and in an easily understood manner.
They enable customers to set up their own virtual offices within the site. In the process, carrier web sites draw customers in and become a far more intimate part of their business lives than routing guides or telephones.
Some fleet web sites act as a kind of low-cost EDI (Electronic Date Interchange), the legacy supply chain technology still used by most large shippers. The web sites are particularly useful to manufacturing or warehouse sites that are involved in logistics but are not linked to a corporate EDI system, perhaps for budgetary reasons.
WHO SHOULD SET UP YOUR WEB SITE
The big guys have their own IT departments. They tend to develop and host their own web sites. But most fleet web sites are provided by vendors that started out with other products and services. For example, mobile communications companies like GeoLogic, Qualcomm and PeopleNet can host or help establish fleet web sites. PeopleNet pioneered the use of web sites to display operational information for trucking management 10 years ago.
Software suppliers such as TMW Systems, McLeod Software, Innovative Computing Corp. and Maddocks Systems provide various kinds of web services for customers. They can integrate data from their software for use on a fleet's own web site or they can host the customer's site - with many variations and combinations in between.
On the private fleet side are vendors such as Tripmaster, Cadec and XATA Corp., which recently introduced XATANET 3.0, an onboard fleet management system that uses the web to communicate with drivers, management and customers.
It makes sense to deal with a vendor you already know, who helps you deal with the same information you'll want to provide on a web site - GPS, load status, proof of delivery, etc.
FOR BEGINNERS: DO IT YOURSELF
If you only need a minimal web presence, an online business card so to speak, you will need a web address and a server.
A web address is known as a universal resource locator, or URL - a name like www.truckinginfo.com, for example. A server is a computer connected to the Internet, a host, where your web page will reside on a hard drive. There are some complications using your own computer as a web server, so most small web sites are hosted by ISPs, or Internet service providers.
That can be anyone from America Online to a store front at a strip mall to the literally thousands of ISPs you can find simply by typing "web hosting" into Google or another search engine.
For a typical small web site, expect to pay anywhere from, say, $5 to $30 a month. The rate can depend on how much traffic the web site will have and how much data you intend to place on the host server. Don't worry much about where the host server is located. On the Internet, it can be next door or 500 miles away.
Depending on your ISP and its level of service, they may or may not help you get a web address. You can get your own web address if necessary. Do a web search for "domain names" and you'll find many services that allow you to search for available names and register the one or more that you choose. Most of these companies also offer web hosting services.
Next you need a web page to put on the server. You can hire someone to create one for you - your web hosting service can probably help you find someone - or you can Google "web design" for lots of names.
But you can easily create your own basic web site using a program like Microsoft FrontPage, which enables you to enter information and format web pages with your keyboard and mouse using simple drag & drop functions. FrontPage automatically translates your actions into HTML (HyperText Markup Language), a text-based code that you post on your ISP server. When someone accesses your site on the Internet, their web browser software translates the code back into the visual page that you created using FrontPage.
Bottom line: If you're in business, get on the web and do it now.
IT Solutions continued...
