It's no suprise to anyone that 2009 was a tough year for companies of any size. Whether a start-up, small business, or mid to large sized company many felt the burn of decreased spending by clients, outsourced processes being pulled internally, and of course the dreaded "budget cut". The good news is looking back on 2009 there is an attitude of agressiveness and optimism moving into 2010.

With this optimism comes the reality that while things are looking up, budgets may not exactly match what needs to be done now in order to capitilize on a recovering market place. It's my strong feeling that the reason there has been corporate growth for IT in two full years of an economy suffering a deep recession is because how it's become more obtainable for all sized businesses and the automation tools allow for streamlining internal processes that typically took a fair amount of administration and labor to effectively manage.

In terms of web application development we can truly roll this into Information Technology (IT) services. Why? Because most of the projects we service serve one of two major purposes.

1. To create a product that a startup company will sell to their clients offering process automation, accountability, workflow process, or client rentention/aquisition.
   
2. To create a flexbile ERP platform that ties together their key systems and provides centralized administration, granular control, and basically can be the single focal point for running an effective business.

The key theme here is that it's either helping them make money or saving them money. Different companies have different variables naturally quantifying their ROI in a variety of ways.

When looking at websites, clients often communicate that they need a professional presence but the true translation of this is that they want to obtain more business by leveraging the internet as a focal point for their marketing efforts. Other reasons often include providing resources to their clients through the website for ease of administration and staying in contact to make sure their needs are being serviced correctly.

Many of these tasks just aren't able to be accomplished on a small budget and firms can't afford to take the risk of liquidating their cash reserves in the hopes of obtaining fast return on investment (ROI). Which brings me to the exciting revelation of this post that I'm hoping nobody else catches on to. The landscape of business across all industries has changed forever. There isn't any rewind, what's done can't be undone, and you should expect your web firm to be flexible. This may not mitigate the actual cost of your project but allow different options for developing, utilizing, and finishing your product.

I'm happy to say that a large part of our expansion coming into 2010 has been directly attributed to structuring deals that are flexible for the clients and  fair to all parties involved. If you want to hear more about this don't hesitate to reach out to me via email.