Who Owns the Web Site? It Depends

It's not uncommon for there to be some debate (fighting) within an organization over who "owns" the Web site. Typically the debate is split between Marketing and IT. That's been the case since the 1990's and continues to be the typical scenario according to the 2009 Corporate Internet Executive Study conducted by the Internet Strategy Forum. According to the study, Marketing or a combination of Marketing and IT resources manage the Web site, which accounts for nearly 70% of all Web teams. 

Placing the Web team in either Marketing or IT makes sense if the sole purpose of the Web is a function of one of those departments, but as the Web becomes more mission-critical, senior managers can expect to hear debate coming from other functional areas within the organization. If you're already experiencing tension between IT and Marketing over who should "own" the site, the noise will only grow in coming years as new technologies and user expectations create a demand for more interaction on the site. The question facing managers now is where should the Web team sit?

It all depends on your vision for the Web site. From a business perspective, does the Web exist only as a communications channel? If so, Marketing may be the best group to manage the site. But it's more likely that the Web serves more than one function:

• Sales - either direct sales such as Amazon.com, or indirect sales where the site helps to move prospective customers through the sales cycle such as real estate or automotive sites.
• Service Delivery - sites that facilitate the fulfillment of a service
  agreement such as online software (Quickbooks) or
  online banking.
• Customer Service - sites that support existing customers either through self-service features (e.g. product support) or a knowledge base that supports traditional offline customer service. 
• Recruitment - sites utilized for attracting job candidates or enrollment, such as colleges and universities or associations.

If your site is designed to support one or more of the above functions, then you should re-think where the Web team sits. A site that is owned by Marketing is likely to have a bias with priorities oriented toward Marketing goals. This inevitably leads to a situation where other functional areas will complain about the inability to leverage the Web to meet their goals (e.g. if you think the fighting between Marketing and IT is bad, wait until Sales, Customer Service and HR get into the fray). 

At the very least, senior management should set overarching business objectives for the site and hold the Web team accountable for formally seeking inputs from all functional areas to ensure the objectives are met. A more strategic approach would be to establish a stand-alone Web team, one that serves all functional areas and reports directly to senior management. This creates a scenario in which the Web team is a neutral group serving all functional areas and better positioned to ensure the Web is aligned with overall business objectives.