Business plan for a web studio. Security Information Portal

The fun begins. Automation of document flow and work with clients is the first pillar on which the conveyor work of any agency stands. This is the first and least obvious way to save studio money and, as a result, free up uselessly loaded managerial resources for useful work.

It was thanks to the approach described below that WebCanape achieved high productivity at the start without increasing the costs of scaling the team. Only after 5 years of work did we have a dedicated sales department. Before this, a flow of 120 applications per month with a conversion rate of 60% was processed by one person.

But speed is not only savings, it also means loyal customers. Whoever makes the first proposal wins :) A real entrepreneur with money would rather choose the first offer he likes than waste time waiting for different options.

Basic business processes of the studio at the sales stage

Let's look at the basic business processes that exist in any web studio.

• Accounting for incoming applications
• Sending a questionnaire, brief
• Brief processing, cost calculation
• Preparation of CP
• Preparation of agreement and applications
• Invoicing
• Bill payment

The application must be accepted, entered into the CRM accounting system (5 minutes), the data transferred to the basic part of the brief and sent to the client (another 5 minutes). After the client fills out the brief, it needs to be processed, calculations made (20 minutes) and a thoughtful commercial proposal prepared (40 minutes) with a preliminary site structure and services. It will take another 30 minutes to prepare the contract and applications, and 10 minutes to issue an invoice.

To implement these processes per application, a standard sales department requires approximately 110 minutes of pure time. This means that it takes 128 hours to process 70 applications. When recalculated for a large number of applications, these are significant losses that are not needed by the client, but affect the final cost of the product. At the same time, for some reason the web studio is trying to optimize production (the process of creating a product), and not these empty processes. Let's see what we did.

To process 70 applications per month, the manager needed 128 hours (full-time salesman). After optimization and automation of processes, it became 37 hours. Now you see why we worked for a long time without a dedicated sales department. The only thing is that it is very important to have an experienced person at the entrance. Automation by itself will not work.

Speed ​​and interchangeability

Step by step, recognizing the problem of low efficiency, we created a system that helped managers work faster with clients. I've already said why speed is more important than cost, but I didn't mention one more problem.

For many, it comes to the fore. The sales manager cannot prepare a professional CP. Where can you find sales people with experience in selling websites when they are not available in the regions?

Accordingly, we needed to provide a tool that would help good managers with little experience in the field of web development to quickly manage document flow and create professional CP.

Calculating the cost of the transaction and issuing a commercial offer

Our internal tool, which we called “Calculator,” became such a tool. Much later, it was reborn into CanapeCRM, which we began to offer to clients.

Electronic documents. We have 100% abandoned Word documents and moved online. Only a link is sent to the client (to the brief, CP, agreement, invoice). If something changes, just make changes to the document in the system, press F5 and the client’s document is already updated. Saving on this and similar processes results in high operational efficiency.

Accounting for applications and brief for the client

Formation of an agreement

Invoicing and on-line payment

Automatic notifications. The second important part of automation is alerts. In the process of work, the manager is forced to write a large number of letters to clients that do not contain important information. The client needs to be informed of the status of the project, request information, tell what to prepare for the upcoming stages, etc. When there are a lot of projects, it greatly distracts from the main task, forces you to switch gears and slows down your work. The CRM system can and should itself provide information to the client and send reminders.

Manager reminders and analytics

One day that will save a million

Spend this day fully setting up the system. Notification texts, commercial proposal templates, contracts and everything that may be useful. This will help you work more profitably and not increase in price along with rising salaries.

I will be hosting a webinar on Monday, October 31, 2016. We will discuss previous materials, talk about important steps at the start, show you how to set up a document management system and answer all questions. Register for the webinar.

If you have any questions, you can write in the comments to the posts.

P.S. Let me remind you that this material is a logical continuation of a series of materials about building a web studio business in the budget segment.

Presentation plan Why is it necessary to model the business processes of a web studio. Experience "WebProfy": working diagram of the business process of creating a website (step-by-step consideration). The main mistakes of beginning web studios. A business process is a logical, sequential, interconnected set of activities that consumes resources, generates value, and creates results.

Why is it necessary to model the business processes of a web studio? No two projects are the same! (axiom) Ensure transparency and predictability of the project for the Contractor and the Customer – Project goals, objectives – Participants, communications – Work stages, milestones – Implementation deadlines – Result Alchemy? No! The recipe is business process optimization.

Stage 2. Product design Preparation of the Brief Preparation of the Technical Assignment Preparation of Specifications - formation of design requirements - determination of the list and collection of source materials - site structure - information blocks (names, properties, work logic) - services (printing, comments, reviews, etc. ) – page grids – regulation of the rules for generating the upload file Agreed and signed Brief, Terms of Reference, Specifications

Stage 3. Design Design concept of the main page Design of a standard internal page Design of screen forms (catalogue, shopping cart, personal account) – development of a layout – presentation to the customer – generation of a sheet of comments, implementation of comments – approval of the layout – work procedure – similar to the Work acceptance certificate by design stage

Stage 4. Layout Design concept of the main page Opening a test site Layout of the main page, standard internal page and screen forms – Demonstration to the customer – Formation of a sheet of comments, implementation of comments – Approval of the layout Creation of a prototype and templates Certificate of acceptance of work at the layout stage

Stage 5. Programming Programming of standard functionality Programming of additional modules Internal testing Testing of the model by the customer - in parallel - request for an upload file - in parallel - test integration - initial content, correction of identified inconsistencies with the technical specifications) - Demonstration to the customer - Formation of a bag-list by the customer - Making edits by the customer - Approval of the software part Acceptance certificate for works at the programming stage

The main mistakes of young companies 2. Priority of the “picture” over design – Incorrect identification of goals and objectives – Blurred idea of ​​the target audience – Saving time on immersion in the subject area – Direct copying of other people’s work – Incorrect prioritization

We quickly realized that making simple websites is unprofitable. Competition increased, the market was flooded with small companies. All this led to lower prices for projects and a drop in business profitability. Customers became more qualified. Requests for the creation of sites were supplemented by requirements to “link” them to one or another information system.

Few people risked tackling complex tasks. For system integrators, such projects were too cheap, and for web studios too complex.

Our Studio has always been located in the Russian “silicon valley” - Zelenograd. We had strong programmers, which meant we could easily receive and fulfill such orders. It was decided - this is our chance!

This is how we turned from an ordinary studio into specialists who ensure the coordinated operation of a website with several information systems - web integrators.

What crap is this web integration of yours?

It is not difficult to ensure the exchange of data between two systems. But our first few years in our new capacity were painful and costly.

Instead of the expected profits, we lost money over and over again, encountering new difficulties, which our technical director gave the code name “pitfalls.”

We did not give up, and, like the mice from the joke, “were injecting ourselves, crying, but stubbornly continued to gnaw the cactus.”

Before you start

Before we talk about the processes, let’s agree on the terminology of this article.

For us programmers, any development of simple websites comes down to this model:

When you need to create not just a website, but an entire system where, in addition to the site’s database, a cash register with a cashier selling theater tickets, a warehouse system that provides information about the balance of goods, or a payment service responsible for processing bank cards is also involved, we We use the concept of “third party”.

A third party is an information system located outside the server room or data center, designed to connect additional resources to our business logic. For example, an SMS service that sends short messages to the user’s phone or a system for reserving goods at a supplier’s warehouse. With the addition of a third party, the process becomes more complex, and we use this algorithm to save time and money when working on an integrated project.

Step 1. Goals and objectives

The first step is to agree in simple language about what we ultimately want to get. The customer expects a specific result from the integration. Automation for the sake of system beauty is rarely of interest to anyone. Trying to articulate goals and expectations in writing is the best way to ensure that the results are understood equally by everyone involved in the work process. We often come across this formulation:

Typical example: The site must be integrated with the ProfTicket ticket system.

and in such cases we try to achieve greater clarity of the wording:

Good example: Buyers should be able to select available seats in the hall, pay for tickets and receive them by email from sales offices or via courier delivery. Information on the availability of seats for sale for specific sessions is provided by the ProfTicket ticket system.

This formulation itself contains a number of questions that might otherwise get lost and emerge at the most inopportune moment.

Step 2. Business processes and interaction protocol

Now you need to decide how the systems should interact to perform a particular task. Let's continue to build analogies with the ticket system. By the way, we are talking about a completely real project: in 2013, we helped the Dilyaver company open a ticket ordering service ShowMart.Ru. To make a ticket reservation, you need to answer several questions:

• Which event did the buyer choose?
• Which session (date and time combination) was selected?
• Which seats (sector number, row and seats) were selected?
• Have these places been sold to another buyer previously?
• Are these places in reserve, in other words, are the purchase of these places being processed by another buyer right now?
• And so on...

Any interaction between systems comes down to a “request-response” structure. The request is sent by the party that needs to receive the data (client), and the response is sent by the party that has this data (server).

The simpler and more unambiguous such a scheme is, the better. At a minimum, you need to make sure that only one of the systems responds to a single request and that the systems do not duplicate each other. For example, information about the price of tickets is stored in only one of them.

At some point, we will need to “ask” one of the systems to reserve tickets - put a mark that does not allow these tickets to be resold to another buyer, and after completing the purchase, one of the systems will need to send a notification letter to the buyer. Therefore, sometimes interaction is required not at the “request-response” level, but according to the “request-action” formula.

The process of interaction between the parties Now all we have to do is record what requests and responses each of the systems is responsible for. And also indicate a list of all possible errors.

Step 3. Decision-making rules and mediators

Even the simplest web integration project involves at least three parties:

1. Customer.
2. The owner of system A (for example, a 1C programmer on the client’s staff).
3. Owner of system B (actually, we are web programmers).

We will not delve into the reasons and analysis of what is happening. Let’s simply state it as a fact: conflicts of interest between the owners of two systems are inevitable. The complexity of the situation depends on the number of participants and their level of qualifications.

It is important to think about how disputes will be resolved before they arise. This is not an easy topic, but it is necessary to agree on at least fundamental points, for example:

• What will the parties be guided by when making a decision: speed, data security issues, or minimal changes to 1C?
• Who will be the responsible party making the final decision if the system owners cannot agree among themselves?

At first glance, it seems that the answer to the last question is obvious: the customer - who else should make the final decisions? However, this is not always the case.

Integration projects place high demands on the technical knowledge of the decision maker. Therefore, sometimes the palm is given to one of the participants in the integration process, or an independent expert is brought in, whose authority is recognized by the owners of both systems.

Step 4. Data exchange standard and format

Now we need to agree on the basis of which standard and in what way we will exchange data between systems.

In most cases, the choice of protocol is determined by the amount of data and the frequency of its transmission. The story will be about those protocols that we most often encounter in our work.

SOAP stands for Simple Object Access Protocol. If literally translated from English, you get “Simple Object Access Protocol”. This protocol is truly one of the simplest and most frequently used when building web projects. SOAP is a structured XML message exchange protocol.

In order for systems to use a unified regulation for constructing requests and responses, files are used with a description of such regulations, compiled on the basis of the WSDL standard (from the English Web Service Description Language).

SOAP is an extension of the XML-RPC protocol, and this is a big plus of the protocol. XML is widely used, and a huge number of specialists are at least superficially familiar with the XML-Schema format.

This same fact is also the biggest disadvantage of SOAP. XML is a voluminous format and as the amount of data exchanged between systems increases, the amount of transmitted traffic increases. As the latter increases, the time required to process requests and generate responses to them increases. All this makes the WSDL/SOAP combination practically unsuitable for use in systems with huge volumes of poorly structured data - in the so-called Big Data systems.

SOAP will be an excellent choice, for example, for solving problems of integrating an online store with a small assortment with a 1C warehouse system. Its standard distribution provides support for this protocol, and all that remains to be done is to prepare WSDL descriptions.

REST (decoding the abbreviation in this case will not give us anything, so we will ignore it) is a protocol for calling a remote procedure using a regular HTTP request. Yes, using the same GET and POST methods from Tim O’Reilly’s textbooks.

Each method in REST is not accounted for by a separate entry in the WSDL file, but by a URL. For example, the method for obtaining information about the user will look like - http://example.com/rest/user. And the method for creating a new user is http://example.com/rest/user/create.

You can use the request body to pass parameters to REST, and HTTP status headers to describe errors. Everything is as simple as possible and does not require the use of additional protocols. REST is much more primitive than SOAP. This is what makes it a great choice when you need to exchange a large amount of data and do it frequently.

REST does not dictate what format requests should be sent in. This means that for these purposes you can use JSON (text data exchange format) - the most compact format for exchanging structures in text representation. Its use almost completely solves the problem of data volume.

Sometimes it is necessary to use combinations of several communication methods and protocols.

1C has its own format CommerceML - XML ​​for transmitting commercial information, most often product catalogs are transmitted in this way.

This format was developed by specialists from 1C and Extra.RU. They were helped by friends from the Moscow office of Microsoft.

For this reason, the format does not allow for many use cases, and “pure” CommerceML is often lacking. This leads to the need to supplement it with special functionality.

Sometimes the client does not have a dedicated external server to communicate with. Then we create a separate folder directly on the hosting server so that 1C can upload its files there. There they are recognized by our scripts according to a schedule.

In cases where we need to constantly keep data up to date, we can tie the Rest API and XML transfer together. Then 1C will send XML directly to the server using standard POST requests.

Step 5: Data Security

Most often, where the need for integration arises, there are trade secrets or personal data. Working with them after recent changes in legislation now deserves a separate article.

No one wants to see their customer base or daily revenue leaked to their competitors. Therefore, it is important to think about ensuring a sufficient level of security for the data exchanged between systems.

There are many protection options. We will look at just a few of them.

The HTTP protocol is the most common and most insecure. The data is transmitted unencrypted. HTTPS is a subset of the http protocol that supports encryption using SSL or TCL certificates.

Certificates are the algorithm by which data will be encrypted. Only the transmitting and receiving parties know about this algorithm at the time of data transmission. SSL certificates can be supplied by the server itself, but then they will be considered untrusted, and browsers may display images that frighten the user.

Window warning the user about an unreliable connection In order for a certificate to be considered trusted, it must be ordered from a certification organization - a certification authority. There are many such institutions. When working on projects for European customers, we prefer to use the services of one of the two largest players in the SSL certification market - Thawte or Verisign. In Russia we work with Ru-center. Their icons can often be seen on sites where payment or work with personal data is implied.

The second method of providing protection is the method in which two systems “introduce” themselves to each other using a “login-password” pair before they begin to exchange data. This method is called “HTTP-basic authorization”.

To prevent attackers from intercepting passwords, it is better to “introduce” yourself to systems in an encrypted form, i.e. HTTP-basic authorization must be used in conjunction with SSL encryption.

If the system is not too complex and the servers of the communicating systems have specific and immutable IP addresses, you can grant access to communication only to these IP addresses.

This option is easy to implement and therefore widely used. But sometimes it leads to sudden access problems.

Step 6. Technical specifications

You may have an excellent relationship with the customer or his 1C programmers, but “friendship is friendship, but tobacco is separate.” We strongly recommend that agreements on all described steps be recorded in writing.

An instructive example from our own experience: We had to make a complex integration of the customer’s 1C:Enterprise with the online store they were using. At a meeting with 1C programmers, we agreed that they would prepare web services on their side, which the Studio’s web programmers would subsequently access.

In the process of close practical work, which took more than one month, 1C programmers changed their point of view and decided to make for us a copy of their database, replicated from the main one, and transfer it to us so that we could “do whatever we want with it” .

This meant that we needed to do an additional amount of work, because there were no web services or clear documentation attached to them. Since we did not record the previous agreements, we were faced with the customer’s fierce reluctance to consider the increased time frame and budget of the project.

In the above example, we were lucky - the 1C programmers turned out to be decent guys and confirmed to their management that we were right. But will you be as lucky next time?

You can work according to agile methodologies, use the classic “waterfall” or use a hybrid methodology. This is not important, as is the format and volume of technical specifications. The only important thing is that all agreements must be recorded in one way or another.

Step 7. Implementation

There are also several differences in the direct production of integration work from mono-development.

To ensure development goes as smoothly as possible, avoid dividing into “yours” and “ours”. On the contrary, do everything to form a single team of external information system developers and your programmers.

Strive to create a single, friendly team, even if only gathered for the duration of the project. You will save a lot of effort and time if all participants in the process are interested in finding an effective solution, and not in shifting the blame or work to a programmer from another company.

In addition, it will take additional time to eliminate the difference in the qualifications of specialists and the development methodologies used. This should also be taken into account when calculating the time and budget of the project.

When working with a third party, you will have to do testing not only at the output, but also at the input.

An example from my own practice: a CRM system programmer reported that the web service necessary to complete the work was completed. The project manager created a task for the web programmer and submitted it, accompanied by a link to this web service. The next day, the web programmer began completing the task exactly as scheduled and was faced with the fact that the web service was not working. The task is returned to the CRM programmer. The time of the web programmer, the project manager and the customer’s money are wasted. Everyone is again waiting for the required web service to be ready.

Previously, everything depended only on your team, and the formulated task was immediately assigned to the programmer. Now you have to first make sure that the components to solve the problem, performed by a third party, actually work.

Requirements will change at the speed of light; owners of external information systems can change web services and APIs without warning. The composition of your own web programmers will change, or it may happen that, having written new functionality, the developers, through their actions, will break what worked great before. We treat one thing, we cripple the other.

The faster it is discovered where in the system and what exactly has “failed”, the lower the costs of supporting it will be, and the higher the profit will be. Therefore, do not skimp on code coverage with tests.

In the case of web integration, the percentage of code coverage by tests should be as high as possible.

Step 8: Fault Tolerance

Systems integration is carried out to reduce the time and financial costs of performing certain business processes. Web integration is more often characteristic of a developed, stable and successful business.

Some of the projects we have completed can cost anywhere from $35,000 to $70,000 lost in a 24-hour downtime. This makes us think additionally about measures to improve the fault tolerance of the entire system.

• Backup. All this is prescribed in the terms of reference and contracts. But let's be honest, do you always check to see if the host or developer has actually set up backup procedures as agreed upon? Most often, this becomes clear when the problem has already occurred.
• Stress Testing. What traffic and peak load does the customer expect? Multiply this figure by at least 2.5 and do synthetic load tests. You need to test not only the site, but also the systems with which the project interacts.
• Seasonality. Know the seasonality of your customer's business. Traffic to the website of the cinema chain, which we created and support, increases 2-3 times during the New Year holidays. In this project we begin preparations for the New Year in early November.
• Readiness for a rollback. You work in a team and this will have to be taken into account. Be prepared for the fact that your new functions may disrupt the normal operation of the external system and the changes will have to be quickly rolled back. Despite load testing, external systems sometimes fail for reasons beyond your control. You must be prepared to continue working by disabling the shared functionality for a while. For example, during a crash in the ticket purchasing service, instead of the ordering process, we show an apology message, but the site itself continues to function.

Step 9. Logging and monitoring

Don’t forget to take into account the costs of creating a logging system in the project timeline and budget. We've been making headway in this place for quite some time.

This is an objective tool with which you can restore the chronology of events; it will not only help you save your nerves, but will also protect you in the event of litigation. Therefore, it is important to “hang” the finished system with indicators and sensors.

At the Studio, we try to do everything in such a way that we learn about the failure of a site or part of it not from a telephone conversation with an angry client, but using our own monitoring systems.

We will not go into detail about this process and may dedicate a separate article to it, but for those who are new to these topics, we advise you to start by Googling the terms Pinba, Zabbix and Munin.

Step 10: Documentation

Agree on the form in which project documentation will be kept and try to keep it up to date.

This will help avoid situations where you have to familiarize yourself with the entire program code to troubleshoot problems. If even the programmer who originally developed all this, after six months no longer remembers what should work and how, is it worth talking about new developers?

The advice is the simplest in meaning and the most difficult to follow. At the Studio we try to do it something like this:

• We agreed on the format for maintaining and storage location of project documentation.
• We compiled a list of documents included in the concept of “project documentation”. As a rule, these are several documents, including a business process map, a description of the server architecture, our technical specifications, documentation for the external system API, etc.
• We appointed someone responsible for keeping the documentation up to date. This is usually the project manager.
• We set a frequency for checking documentation.

All! Now the person in charge from time to time does a selective or complete check, depending on who you like, to check the relevance of the documents. Or he doesn’t... and understands that he can get punished for it at any moment.

Conclusion

The article turned out to be long and complex. But the last thing I wanted was to scare you away from web integration. Of course, it requires experience. But there is no experience without practice. And there is no practice without mistakes.

Integration is a good way to improve the efficiency of your customers' business processes. For web developers, this is a way to increase the cost and margin of their own services. And what’s more, due to the complexity of the process, competition in this market is less than in the website creation market.

Request: Now in the Studio we are trying to understand whether you are interested in reading such articles? It takes a lot of effort to make the material useful and practical. It took three specialists about 20 hours to prepare this article.

Our art director Sasha Kotov believes that we are “being foolish”, and no one will read this :-)

So if you find this work useful and think we should continue like this, please like this article or share it on social media. This way we will understand that we are not writing on the table and will get the motivation to continue.

* The calculations use average data for Russia

Maintaining your own Internet portal is quite a complex and troublesome task. At the same time, today your website (or at least a page on a social network) is a very effective tool for promoting your goods or services; the site allows you to directly contact consumers, carry out online sales and deal with a whole list of tasks that can be solved most quickly and economically via the Internet profitable and effective. In connection with all this, the need to create a website is great for any company (although, of course, there are areas of business where the lack of a website is not critical), but not every company is able to develop and support the created Internet portal on its own. Typically, these processes are outsourced, and this article will discuss the possibility of opening your own web design studio. Many people consider this direction to be very profitable and promising, but there are many of its own characteristics that must be taken into account before starting.

In general, nowadays a web design studio is understood in most cases as an office that offers a whole range of services, which also includes the development and even promotion of a website. However, it should be noted that in the narrow sense, the concept of web design involves the design of a site, its content, possibly in combination with content. Therefore, the clients of a web design studio are usually clients who already have their own website, but they need to improve its functionality or simply correct graphic elements, increasing the attractiveness of their page. However, it should be noted that it is usually unprofitable to engage exclusively in design services; the client comes for a wider range of services, and working in the field of web design still requires the same power as creating a website. In this regard, today such a studio is a multidisciplinary organization that is able to solve all sorts of issues for its client; in this case, we can talk about good profitability and competitiveness of its business in this direction.

To start your work, you need to register as a business entity, here you can also register as an individual entrepreneur, because then it will be possible to resolve all bureaucratic issues in the shortest possible time and with minimal expenditure of effort and money. If there is a need to register a legal entity, then the preferred form is a limited liability company, because in this case, as in the case of individual entrepreneurship, a simplified taxation system will be available, involving the transfer to the state of no more than 6% of income or 15 % of operating profit as taxes. Direct design activities fall under the definition (OKPD 2) 74.1 Services for specialized design, but other classifiers may be required in their work. The work itself will not require additional permits or licenses, unless the company intends to engage in hosting activities or work in the field of information security.

The pressing issue is the market situation. Yes, at the moment it cannot be said that the market suffers from a lack of supply; usually the consumer has the opportunity to choose among many studios, because a significant percentage of graduates who have mastered programming and/or design are trying to engage in web design. At first glance, everything really seems very simple - just learn one of these specialties, find a team and like-minded people who will deal with other aspects of the activity, then advertise about yourself and ultimately do an interesting job and get paid for it. But if we ignore even the technical issue (programming itself and everything that goes with it), then we must not forget that design work is an exclusively creative process, and here even a good education may not be enough, because artistic talent is also needed. And also the ability to work in strict accordance with the client’s requirements, that is, to be able not only to create something new, create, be creative, but also vice versa - to restrain your talent, doing exactly what was asked. Still, only professionals in their field can do this, and finding them can be very difficult. And on top of everything else - programming, a specialist in the relevant profile must be able to cope with a task of any complexity. This is why web design services are well paid - after all, this is a difficult process that often requires a non-trivial approach. From this we can conclude that if there really are competent and experienced people at the start, then you can count on winning in the competition even with leading companies in the local market. Otherwise, even with large investments, if you recruit the wrong team, you can quickly go bankrupt - here the client still primarily values ​​quality, not low price. That is, despite a fairly large number of competitors, every newcomer has a chance to enter the market; the main thing is to be able to correctly use your strengths and the weaknesses of your competitors. A SWOT analysis here before starting can provide answers to many questions and focus attention on the most pressing issues. However, it is worth noting again that in many cases the determining factor is the people who will be involved in the work.

In this line of business, it is not always advisable to rent your own office. Especially at first. Looking ahead a little, we note that a significant part of the employees will work remotely (freelancers), so sometimes there is no point in finding premises, hiring managers who simply monitor the situation in the office, and carrying out other administrative red tape that in no way affects profit generation , and often, on the contrary, entails additional expenses. Of course, having your own representative office somewhere in the city center, in a business center, can be very attractive to the client and add prestige, but most often it is just an unnecessary addition. Of course, if you locate the studio actually at home, then in any case you will have to worry about the place where negotiations with clients will take place. This could be a neutral territory, for example, some kind of food establishment, some offices even invite their clients to their homes (but this is possible if there is no expectation of collaborating with reputable organizations) or they rent office space literally only for the duration of negotiations - that is, for an hour. In this case, you will have to find a place that can be filmed with some frequency. However, it is impossible to say that an office is not needed at all; in some work formats, depending on how the work process is organized, renting your own premises where employees are constantly located may be necessary. This is especially true when a company offers a wide range of services, is constantly busy with work and has a large staff of employees. In this case, quite often it is necessary to maintain your own representative office, although a certain part of people continue to work remotely. In general, we can say this - you can try to open your own web studio at home, but we cannot exclude the possible need to rent a separate office space in the future. Which then is really better to look for in business districts, so that the largest possible number of consumers can come to the office in a short period of time. The cost of renting a space depends on a number of factors, but location is usually the most significant. Also, if a representative office is opened, you need to count on at least cosmetic repairs and the purchase of appropriate equipment - furniture and equipment. Maintaining the office also requires monthly payment of utility bills, which in addition to the basic ones includes payment for the Internet. A separate expense item is the purchase of appropriate software, which in its corporate versions can cost several tens of thousands of rubles.

Ready ideas for your business

At the very beginning of your work, unless a famous designer with his own client base accidentally ends up on the team, you should still concentrate primarily on providing services in some relatively narrow area. That is, try to find a niche that is not too covered by competitors. This, for example, could be targeting only small companies or developing exclusively business card websites, or working with enterprises that are engaged only in a certain area. There is no point in trying to immediately compete and take away clients from large studios. It also makes no sense to start work offering your services over a geographically large region. That is, it is better to work with consumers of services in your city, or at least in the region, but not in several constituent entities of the Russian Federation at the same time. So, a web design studio can theoretically provide not only design, but also other services:

Website development. This refers to technical execution, that is, writing code, debugging, adding functionality. This is a very important area, and it is almost certainly worth pursuing; development is not offered only by design studios, which are more inclined to the field of advertising and marketing.

Hosting services. Full support and maintenance of the site, which is preceded by registration and placement on the server. This is usually done by special hosting companies that provide full-fledged services in this direction. Despite the proximity of the spheres, a lot of additional capacity is required, which is not always advisable.

SEO, SMM, SMO. The most progressive and modern solutions in the field of content of Internet portals. They allow you to “promote” your site in all possible ways – from placing it in the top search engine queries (SEO) to searching for clients on social networks (SMM) and attracting traffic from social networks to the desired site (SMO). These are already marketing services, although they are in great demand on the market.

IT outsourcing. It represents a whole range of services for launching, maintaining and supporting the enterprise’s information technology infrastructure. Like hosting services, this is a rather complex area that requires significant capacity.

Thus, an entrepreneur has a wide range of opportunities, and some of the areas can be considered as a development option, that is, for the future. This adds to the attractiveness of this business, because once the manager realizes that he was able to sufficiently capture the web design market, he will be able to expand the range of his activities. However, now it’s worth talking about the most important thing - the staff. First of all, these are, of course, designers, and precisely those who studied directly in web design, that is, at their higher educational institution they mastered a specialty that involves knowledge in the field of computer technology. And at the same time, they know exactly what an attractive website should look like and how to make it so. Although a close one, it is still a separate position - programmer, and they can also be divided into several categories; people knowledgeable in this do not need to clarify, but for amateurs it should be noted that there are those who write code, there are those who deal with content, there are those who add third-party developments to their site. That is, one programmer clearly cannot cope, especially if the company also wants to engage in full-fledged website development. Designer and programmer are conventionally the two main staff units. If, of course, you are very lucky, you can find a programmer-artist who will do everything at once, but... how much will one person be able to do?

Ready ideas for your business

Next, you will need people who are involved in marketing, or, more simply put, in promoting their services and finding clients. Sometimes a whole group of people is needed to look for clients, hold meetings with them, and make presentations. In other words, these are sales managers. But a significant part will almost certainly be occupied by freelancers - these are people who perform work only as it arrives, work remotely and receive wages only upon completion of the work. Freelancers may be needed to create some individual design elements, to develop some parts of the code, or for copywriting/rewriting. It is usually not difficult to find them, they are given a relatively simple task, but cooperation with them allows you to significantly reduce your staff costs, because you do not have to pay salaries when there are no projects.

Some companies even work in such a way that they outsource a significant part of their work, that is, for example, a web design studio deals exclusively with the development of the graphic part, but at the same time offers clients solutions from the field of programming, transferring them to contractors. This also leads to significant savings being achieved. It is also worth outsourcing business processes that are not related to the organization’s profit making, for example, accounting.

Designer services involve in most cases the creation of a unique project that compares favorably with the customer’s competitors. However, it must be said that a considerable percentage of consumers come to a web design studio with a ready-made task, where all the requirements are clearly stated, and often the content that needs to be placed on the portal is also transferred. That is, the designer is placed within limits, sometimes quite serious ones. But there are also clients who don’t know what they want. They can be offered ready-made solutions that were developed by designers independently and represent a “universal product”, characterized by simplicity in the good sense of the word. But if the client does not have his own task, and he wants to get something unique, then the designer should be able to, in negotiations with the customer, find out exactly what he needs and develop the task together with him. Thus, a good studio initially has a package of its proposals, is ready to work according to clear instructions and is open to individual work with the client. This is when you can talk about the success of your business. As for the website creation technology itself, this is usually not important to the client; his request is that it should be “beautiful”, “not slow down”, “convenient”, “functional”, etc. The customer is only interested in the final result, and not in the process of creating or optimizing/refining his website.

To promote your services, you can and should use all available tools. This includes posting information about yourself on thematic portals on the Internet, maintaining your pages on social networks and all similar techniques. However, advertising in local media can also be surprisingly effective, bringing in more than half of the customers. But still, the main task in promoting your studio is to form your client base and earn a good reputation. Then word of mouth will do all the hard work, and the studio will have many customers brought in by past clients who are satisfied with the results.

Ready ideas for your business

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, Sales Management , WebCanape Blog

The fun begins. Automation of document flow and work with clients is the first pillar on which the conveyor work of any agency stands. This is the first and least obvious way to save studio money and, as a result, free up uselessly loaded managerial resources for useful work.

It was thanks to the approach described below that WebCanape achieved high productivity at the start without increasing the costs of scaling the team. Only after 5 years of work did we have a dedicated sales department. Before this, a flow of 120 applications per month with a conversion rate of 60% was processed by one person.

But speed is not only savings, it also means loyal customers. Whoever makes the first proposal wins :) A real entrepreneur with money would rather choose the first offer he likes than waste time waiting for different options.

Basic business processes of the studio at the sales stage

• Accounting for incoming applications
• Sending a questionnaire, brief
• Brief processing, cost calculation
• Preparation of CP
• Preparation of agreement and applications
• Invoicing
• Bill payment

To implement these processes per application, a standard sales department requires approximately 110 minutes of pure time. This means that it takes 128 hours to process 70 applications. When recalculated for a large number of applications, these are significant losses that are not needed by the client, but affect the final cost of the product. At the same time, for some reason the web studio is trying to optimize production (the process of creating a product), and not these empty processes. Let's see what we did.

To process 70 applications per month, the manager needed 128 hours (full-time salesman). After optimization and automation of processes, it became 37 hours. Now you see why we worked for a long time without a dedicated sales department. The only thing is that it is very important to have an experienced person at the entrance. Automation by itself will not work.

Speed ​​and interchangeability

For many, it comes to the fore. The sales manager cannot prepare a professional CP. Where can you find sales people with experience in selling websites when they are not available in the regions?

Accordingly, we needed to provide a tool that would help good managers with little experience in the field of web development to quickly manage document flow and create professional CP.

Calculating the cost of the transaction and issuing a commercial offer

Our internal tool, which we called “Calculator,” became such a tool. Much later, it was reborn into CanapeCRM, which we began to offer to clients.

Electronic documents. We have 100% abandoned Word documents and moved online. Only a link is sent to the client (to the brief, CP, agreement, invoice). If something changes, just make changes to the document in the system, press F5 and the client’s document is already updated. Saving on this and similar processes results in high operational efficiency.

Accounting for applications and brief for the client

Formation of an agreement

Invoicing and on-line payment

Automatic notifications. The second important part of automation is alerts. In the process of work, the manager is forced to write a large number of letters to clients that do not contain important information. The client needs to be informed of the status of the project, request information, tell what to prepare for the upcoming stages, etc. When there are a lot of projects, it greatly distracts from the main task, forces you to switch gears and slows down your work. The CRM system can and should itself provide information to the client and send reminders.

Manager reminders and analytics

One day that will save a million

I will be hosting a webinar on Monday, October 31, 2016. We will discuss previous materials, talk about important steps at the start, show you how to set up a document management system and answer all questions. Register for the webinar.

If you have any questions, you can write in the comments to the posts.

P.S. Let me remind you that this material is a logical continuation of a series of materials about building a web studio business in the budget segment.