Increasingly, Web sites play an important role in corporate strategy. Some Web sites provide branding benefits or retail sales, while others serve as internal communication portals for employees. No matter what purpose a Web site serves, it offers a potentially strategic asset that should be included in your organization's budget.

Yet many people find the process of identifying Web site costs and potential benefits mystifying. To solve this problem, you can learn how to identify the indirect benefits and hidden risks of your site, appoint a site owner, allocate resources, and measure your site's performance. Perform scenario analysis by using Microsoft Office Excel 2003 to evaluate a range of situations in which your Web site's changing costs or benefits might affect revenue and your budget. Excel can also help you better understand the potential return on investment (ROI) for your Web site over multiple years.

Use the following articles and tools to learn how to incorporate Web initiatives into your budgeting process, and you'll benefit from a more robust budget that better meets your organizational strategy.

• Budget for Web initiatives (Article)
  Understand the budgeting effect of your company's Web initiatives, such as how costs and benefits should be forecasted and how costs should be allocated across your organization.
• Use scenario analysis in Excel for Web-site budgeting (Article)
  Use the Scenario Manager tool in Microsoft Office Excel 2003 to quickly analyze how potential changes in costs and benefits might affect your Web site's budget.
• Web site budget tool (Template)
  Enter the potential costs and benefits for your Web site over a three-year period to calculate its ROI.