Five easy pieces: Web-based initiatives CFOs and CIOs can agree on.

The CFO is thinking bottom line. The CIO is thinking cutting-edge. But, here are five Web-based initiatives that both can agree on because the cost is low and the benefit is high.

1. Try out a Web-based CRM solution. CRM (customer relationship management) is the art of knowing your customers at all stages in the sales cycle. CRM is more than a contact database. A true CRM system allows your sales team to work outside the company firewall, enables your customer service team to see every email and phone transaction any customer has had with your company, and allows your company to forecast and direct marketing efforts at the special needs of customers to better support your bottom line.

CRM solutions almost always tout an ability to interact directly with your accounting system. As a result, they are often chosen based on their capacity to provide seamless integration. Our experience tells us that integration is never seamless, but there are certain factors that can make it easier. Web services is at the top of that list of facilitators. If you're considering adding Web-based alternatives to one of your systems, this is the lowest hanging fruit.

2. Monitor your Web site. Your site is up in Texas but down in Timbuktu. How do you know this? What if your server is about to fail? Is it possible to predict failures and prevent an outage or loss of data? Yes, much more easily than you think.

Checking for up-time and server health is an ideal service to get from the Web. Set-ups are easy, and the monthly subscription is two figures. Just above the two-figure mark is server monitoring, which requires you to install a small application (approximately 20 kilobytes) on your Web server. That application communicates the amount of data your NICs (network interface cards) are sending, how much random access memory (RAM) you're utilizing, how much disk space you have left and how many central processing unit (CPU) cycles you're revving. The total picture of these measurements can help your information technology (IT) staff determine when your server is healthy and when it's not. The two together will soon be seen as essential components in your technical tool chest for preventing disaster and minimizing downtime.

3. Outsource your email announcements. If you haven't done so already, you probably will soon. Your marketing department is going to ask for a better way to send emails to your list of 5,000 (and growing) customers. Maintaining those relationships is essential to growing sales. Any bounced, unopened or deleted message is a net loss. Because these email systems are dedicated third-party solutions, your IT staff need not worry about the impact of sending email on its systems. Your marketing and sales teams will have more data on click-throughs, open rates, leads and conversions than they can shake a pen at.

4. Deploy an intranet. This is much easier than it sounds. Intranets are essential to business operations, and those that communicate between systems as easily as between your employees are underutilized. They allow for remote workers to stay in contact with important forms and documents, and they automate event announcements and tasking. They can even let you know who's in the office and what conference room availability looks like.

This may seem trivial, but the efficiencies created by deploying an intranet framework for you to hang your business processes on, multiplied over your locations and employees, cannot be underestimated.

5. Hire a director of Internet strategy. If this isn't a line item in this year's budget, perhaps it's time to move some figures around. Making room for an Internet strategist on your executive staff is essential. This person should work independently of the CTO/CIO and be free to roam between marketing, sales, IT and operations. As more critical systems have compelling Web-based alternatives, you'll want an Internet strategist to help each of those departments make business cases for your major upcoming investments.

Even if your company decides to go with software-based solutions, at least you did so with the best possible awareness of the alternatives. A director of Internet strategy will be able to communicate the risks and rewards to all of your internal stakeholders and keep your vendors on the alert that your company is serious about not being held hostage by its systems.

Kelly Abbott is Director of Information Strategy at Red Door Interactive, which-helps organizations in diverse industries implement Internet technology systems that tie together disparate networks. He can be reached at [e-mail].