David Bowen commentaries

In his regular columns for the Financial Times and ft.com, senior consultant David Bowen has pursued themes ranged from customer relationship management and career marketing to ‘ethical’ retailing and royal family sites. His collected Financial Times and ft.com columns from January 2001 onward are indexed by theme and available for viewing on this site.

You can access articles directly by selecting a link below.

  • Where to check out best practice in the art of the possible The more possibilities the web opens up as a medium, the greater the complexities it presents in managing a website’s effectiveness. Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the financial services sector, where over the past two years banks have been
  • Why the multimedia future has taken 10 years to arrive The first public trials of online services were run in the early 1990s amid a flurry of predictions about the brave new world that technology was poised to deliver. But only 10 years on has much of this reached the point of mass reality. The key to its ev
  • Why a fragmented, rickety infrastructure undermines Europe online The European Union website offers information in 14 more languages than the United Nations’ attempts. But its usefulness to citizens is deeply flawed by technical and organisational issues that make a cautionary lesson for any content-rich or multinatio
  • How carmakers have slipped out of the fast lane Direct sales to customers seemed a natural online progression for a car industry renowned for its relentless pursuit of innovation and efficiency. But after setting off down that road, most have stalled or headed in another direction.
  • Why it’s never been better to talk Live chat, the ability to have a real-time dialogue with visitors to your website, is no longer a creaky gimmick. In the right circumstances, and executed properly, it can revolutionise online help and sales conversion rates.
  • How companies are failing to develop their hottest property A corporation’s most valuable piece of real estate is arguably the square foot that is the home page of its main website – the one you reach when you type in www.group.com. So why do so many corporations get such a poor return on this asset?
  • How brand builders burn their budgets on valueless sites If half the money spent on advertising is famously wasted, the cash burned on brandbuilding websites makes it look like focused investment in comparison. Failure to recognise the unique character of the web is usually to blame. Rather than ask what the me
  • How the Olympic contenders put their credentials online Nine major cities have just made very public competitive tenders for one of the most prized contracts in the world: host for the summer Olympic games of 2012. All bar one have gone online to promote their cause – and one is running rings round the other
  • Why now is the time to factor broadband into your online thinking High-speed internet connections – broadband – are more talked about than subscribed to. But while broadband penetration in most countries remains in single figures the rate of take-up is accelerating, especially among the well-to-do and influential. T
  • How space has opened up new frontiers for the web Last week the US space agency Nasa’s website received 1 billion hits between noon Saturday and noon Tuesday – a third of the volume handled during all of 2003. It was a happy start to the year for the web, demonstrating not only the giant step for use

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