The late 1990s seem like so long ago for so many reasons. The world was at peace, the US economy was booming, it seemed like everyone was at an earnings peak, and the Internet was a place no business could afford to ignore.

Of course, that last point became the topic of much derision and a serious backlash. Since the bursting of the Internet bubble, many businesses have become as bearish today as they were irrationally exuberant in the late 1990s. But in their reluctance to invest any more in the Internet, many are actually costing themselves money in terms of total cost of operation. Now that corporate earnings are on the rise again, wise companies will take a second look at their Web operations with an eye to total cost.

If your company’s Web site was built in the late 1990s, chances are it is costing you more to operate it than it would if it were redeveloped using today’s technology. For instance, content management solutions have become both more robust and more affordable in the last five years. If you’re still updating in HTML, it is likely you’re spending too much and updating too infrequently. IMA has had many clients pay for the overhaul of their content pages though maintenance savings of less than a year.

The same operational efficiencies can be unearthed in eCommerce and database applications. Many 5- or 6-year-old eCommerce applications relied on manual labor to process orders. If your eCommerce relies on clerks to retrieve orders, process credit cards, and move the order to fulfillment, an eCommerce overhaul could pay for itself in a short time. Just how short a time will depend on factors such as your volume of orders and your cost of labor. But it’s a straightforward analysis.

The side benefits of your site overhaul are likely to be an updated design and better user interface, because time has not stood still there, either. Both advances in technology – such as Macromedia Flash – and the evolution of consumer expectations mean that your late 1990s Web site feels as dated as Disco to the sophisticated Web user. The payback on a design update isn’t as easily quantified as the operations described above, but they could be even greater.