Pay peanuts – get (code) monkeys. Approaches to the economic downturn
Whether you call it a downturn or a full-blown recession, there is no doubt that these have been tough times for UK companies. Either by good planning or good luck (quite possiby the latter) we’ve remained extremely busy and are continuing to expand.
What the slowdown has done is educate us about client attitudes to web development and their wider internet strategy. Because when money gets tight, companies have to spend money on the things they believe are important. And some cases, those priorities don’t include web development.
As things have got tougher, we’ve encountered lots of companies looking for web design bargains of the “my brother could do this for £200″ variety. Unfortunately, they seem to be making the assumption that [company + any old pages on the net = massive profit]. Given how long the web has been around and the (blindingly obvious) difference between good and bad sites it’s a little disheartening that some firms still can’t see the potential for web developers to add real value to their web presence.
Thankfully, the slowdown has made a number of other companies realise just how integral their web strategy is to the success of their business. They understand how a usable, well-integrated site can give them a huge edge over the competition (both through the ‘front-end’ increasing sales and the ‘back-end’ cutting administration overheads). And they understand they need a company that knows the web inside-out to help them achieve this.
And, just occasionally, there is the ‘eureka’ moment. Like the lovely chap who thought his site wasn’t selling because of the font face it used (and wanted us to do a ‘quick and cheap’ fix). And who, when we explained the ‘slightly’ more significant issues of a chaotic information architecture, reams of unreadable text and a truly eye-popping colour scheme, just got it.
So, we’ll keep on providing insight rather than being tempted in to high volume, low-cost ‘code monkeying’. And if anyone really does have a brother (or sister) working from their bedroom who can develop a web site for £200 – we’ve got enough potential clients to keep you in business for years to come!
