Web development

In today’s digital world, the power of a brand can and must no longer suffer from the “ifs, ands, and buts” of security and technology. Nor should it suffer from all the arguments of “We can’t, because IT…” or “We’ve never done this before…” or “Our customers don’t use mobile services…” These sentences and objections are spoken millions of times every day all over the world. These sentences prevent change, prevent opening, and prevent breaking new ground leading to new solutions and possibilities.

“All roads lead to Rome” — this proverb could not be more apt for every task in the information technology and communication technology environment. In numerous B2B enterprises, there are established and powerful monolithic systems. These were associated with expensive initial (acquisition) costs and therefore are not to be called into question. The “old” IT world, however, has disadvantages. Its segmentation into subsystems was, and still is, weakly pronounced in such central systems. The lack of modularization makes such systems complicated starting at a certain size, making increasing complexity hardly manageable. Parts of the entire system can be adapted, changed, or expanded only with great effort, which negatively influences usage focused on the future. A further aspect is the efficient, load-balancing processing within the systems, with a view to performance and scalability.

Looking back on the history of IT and the decisions made in the past, much has been right. But times are changing. Digitalization and digital communication in the sense of the brand and marketing need fast solutions — right-sized and state-of-the-art. Solutions that are fun, that stage the brand, that enable simple interactions…. The success of digital communication for every B2B company in the future lies in acting quickly, flexibly, and in line with the brand. As a digital branding agency, we are committed to this.

That is why it is important to ask the right questions at the beginning of both small and large projects:

• Which systems are available and what can they do?
• Can they do what digital brand communication needs?
• Who are the target groups, are there personas (profiles of stereotypical users), and what user behavior can be deduced from the personas?
• What kind of activity associated with what kind of information is it and how relevant to security is the content?
• Which basic requirements and which legal requirements have to be fulfilled, especially with regard to the processing of personal data?

As a digitally oriented branding agency, our goal is to find solutions that do not “use a sledgehammer to crack a nut.” If a microsite or landing page is required for a marketing and communication topic, it does not necessarily have to be behind the firewall with IT security class S3. If it concerns sensitive and special data which are used in the context of digital communication, security cannot be stressed enough. The important thing is not to lump everything together!

The answers shape the conceptual and strategic work. They are parameters for the comparison of the different systems and help when selecting the respective solution. Aspects of international or local use, from multilingualism to monolingualism, from centralized or decentralized control of digital communication, are also included here.

INCREON never conducts development detached from the brand and customer view. Marketers are able to talk about customer journey, content marketing, brand management, and brand experience in the digital space. They can also discuss understanding and acceptance in your own company. In discussions with developers and IT specialists, the focus is often on the technology and the system, which is why our online marketing and brand experts sit at the table in an interdisciplinary team. This ensures that the solution is equally well received by everyone.

• The security and complexity of the applications determines the individual server and security concepts for the respective requirements.
• Transparency in digital communication is a must, but the protection of privacy and company information requires appropriate measures.
• The acceptance of cloud computing is growing, especially because providers offer country- and data protection-specific server facilities and thus users are becoming increasingly familiar with them. This opens up new possibilities.
• The networking of data, also in the sense of Big Data, cannot be stopped. The only important thing is that the user knows what happens to his data and where and to what extent.

Implementation is carried out along with our subsidiary INCREON Digital GmbH — from specifications, system selection, and programming to testing, implementation, training, and ongoing support. One thing is clear: there is usually not one system that can do everything. Rather, each has its strengths in certain applications.

Intensive testing in all phases of every new database solution and web development is also part of the process. Internal tests, beta phases, go live, and regular improvements and enhancements are part of this.

Before an application goes online, users have to be trained in the train-the-trainer style as well as in custom group training courses. Trust and safe handling create easier access to new applications for every user and form the basis for sustainable use.

It is important for the success of such projects to change the “data sovereignty of the princes” in individual departments. This is often about the fear of losing power. And that causes some to become inventive or leads to refusal. That is why it is important to get opinion leaders from such departments or divisions involved in the project early in the ideas and design phase. And it is equally important that management supports this transformation, monitors it, and exemplifies change. As an integrated branding agency, we also see the internal communication tasks here. The broader the agreement for a new application, the more proponents and later active users the project has.