Software Review of:
Web Strategy 
Pro 

Web Strategy Pro is not a Website building tool. You’ll use it to create and define your strategic planning underlying the need for your Web presence. Why is this important? It can serve as the basis of a sound focused plan for site development. Like any good plan, it provides the tools to let you detail where you are, where you want to go, how you plan to get there and track your progress as you go. A Website for its own sake is of little value. A Website that clearly fulfills its purpose can be a tremendously effective tool and asset to your business. Using Web Strategy Pro, you can make and communicate a strong business case to others whether it is an internal project or you are seeking outside funding in the form of loans or venture capital.

This is my first time to use the program. The CD installation was a few clicks and painless. Maximum installation space required according to the box is 30Mb. My actual installation ran closer to 20Mb. This is probably due to shared components with Business Plan Pro already installed on the system. 

The program has the same look and feel as Business Plan Pro. The topics and sections in the strategy documents vary from Business Plan Pro, as they are specific to Web development. If your business will be a pure Internet play, you would do well to use both programs and link them together. If you have an existing business and are developing a Web-based strategy, Web Strategy Pro will work well as a stand-alone.

Topics covered include your strategy, target market analysis, implementation and development planning, financials and contingencies. You can navigate through the program using either an outline format, task manager or just step-by-step just as in Business Plan Pro. Each topic includes instructions, examples, formatting options, pre-formatted tables, formulas and charts. Once you have entered your data you can print your plan from the program, publish it on the net via LivePlan.com or export it in doc, rtf or html format. It allows for updating and comparison with planned, actual and variances tables. In essence, you end up with a living document you can continue to refine as you go and present to others for a clear explanation of your goal and progress.

A great additional feature not found in Business Plan Pro is the links tab. It provides quick section specific hyperlinks to Internet resources on the topic you are addressing, for example you can learn about viral marketing and banners to improve the effectiveness and growth of your site.

Web Strategy Pro covers the specifics of a Website development plan better than Business Plan Pro alone. For example, it addresses forecasting by traffic as opposed to sales alone and other issues that are not considered in traditional business plans. 

Linking the two products together covers all the bases. Here is its greatest strength and weakness. Linking is done via the link wizard as a data mapping exercise that is straightforward but could be improved. I’d like to see the wizard offer a one-click default consolidated mapping option for all topic sections instead of requiring you to select each topic individually. It’s my bet that this feature will be incorporated soon in an update. It would be much easier to de-select those you don’t want to map. In the meantime, the link wizard is an effective means to integrate all the Palo Alto Pro series products together. The wizard certainly is much easier than writing your own data interface to parse the data. This saves a lot of development time that can be better used for your own Web project. Going through the exercise is a great tutorial in itself to understand the basics of data mapping for those who are interested.

The boxed product includes both books, Hurdle and On Target as well as the getting started manual. Full support and 60-day money back guarantee. Extensive program and online help is provided as well as thorough documentation. Software and service as it should be. Microsoft could learn a lot from Palo Alto in this arena.

Overall, Web Strategy Pro is a great first effort and certainly fits well into the Pro series of solutions. As the only product of its type currently on the market, I expect it to take the lead and become a standard just as Business Plan Pro has done for the overall business planning market. I’ll use it now as the best option for its purpose. I look forward to the enhancements that will make integration with their other products easier.

You can order direct from the Website or at our local computer retail stores for $99.95. The Website offers discounts for the entire bundle of four programs or combinations of two or more programs.

Palo Alto Software
144 E 14th St.
Eugene, OR 97401. 
Phone: (541) 683-6162
Fax: (541) 683-6250
Customer Service: (800) 229-7526.