E-commerce requirements for a company

6 min read
E-commerce requirements for a company
The publication of an e-commerce, for a company born and grown in the analogue world, requires to introduce / develop new skills: a change within the  management must be put in place which obviously is as big as the importance of the project itself for the company. 

The new online shop is akin to the opening of a shop, potentially with users from all over the world, open 24 hours a day, in a place that has precise rules and pitfalls that are very different from those of the real world: this drives the comparison with new dynamics and new skills / resources to consider in order to better manage the new business area. 

It is necessary to:
  • understand specific technological needs, different from those already experienced, for example, in production;
  • evaluate how and if to start active monitoring / intervention services;
  • consider the specific communication rules for the multimedia;
  • redo contracts accordingly to the online selling ...
... shortly, review a large part of the processes accordingly to the "online" market. 

This is also true for companies into the same business: every company is unique and has different characteristics. It is mandatory to start always from the processes and then to design the shop.

It is for this reason that the testing phase assumes great importance: it is good practice to test every single process with all its variables and related functionalities. 

Some examples… 

In the tourism sector, potential customers rather than booking and / or buying directly from the site or from the dedicated marketplace, search in a geographical area of ​​interest more facilities that have similar features. Then contact those selected for further questions and the first that answers it often the one that closes the sale. Communication management and response time become a critical variable. 

From a technological point of view in general, it is important to pay attention to the hosting that must guarantee continuity of service, availability, performances but also integrates with: payment systems, tools for logistics, sync to other ERPs. Understanding these dynamics and understanding how to deal with them (make or buy) is part of the change. 

Other technical pitfalls can be created by hackers that aim to saturate the system resources to cause a crash of the service or exploit some vulnerabilities to compromise stability or contents. 

From the organizational point of view, in addition to the logistics that requires to put in place procedures that guarantee timeliness for deliveries, withdrawals and other flows, the promotional also plays has a significant impact. A manager must have (or acquire) the skills to define objectives and targets (related to the web and therefore know the digital market of his sector) address strategies, evaluate proposals, the tools used as well as the results achieved; must know how it is possible to measure actions, constantly monitor and know how it is possible to intervene on current campaigns. Obviously the company can delegate everything to an agency but must be able to evaluate each step and probably needs some personnel for the activities concerning the digital world. 

The mindful manager identifies which processes related to the e-commerce are potentially critical. For some of these it will be possible to find internal solutions while for others, to contain management costs, it will be possible to evaluate total or partial outsourcing solutions

A suitable web agency can develop applications to manage, monitoring or changing ongoing processes. 
These bespoke apps, interfaced with the e-commerce and with any other applications to which they must interact with, will allow to resolve the critical issues allowing also mobile interventions. 

In this way, with simple operations carried out directly from the smartphone, it could be possible to allocate different quantities of a product within the e-commerce; or in a few steps you could update / manage the products; or again, update the whole workflow. 

Choosing such solutions - strictly related to the company business - allow to outsource only the tools development while maintaining the management of processes (possible to those who know the company and not external) and the responsibilities (which an outsider should still obtain by interacting with company personnel). All those "technical" processes that are not directly related to the company's business can be outsourced: for ex. security, efficiency of IT procedures, server performance, etc.