Mind your housekeeping
We don't have to tell you that online, as anywhere, technology is a means to an end and not an end in itself. You might have a great Web site that customers love, but if you can't automate your business processes it won't mean much in the long term.
"Many organisations have learned that brochureware is wholly inadequate," says Presence Online's Ginsburg, who believes content management in particular is a lot more complex than most people have made it out to be. "They have not yet learned their lessons because a lot of organisations have tried to come up with in-house built solutions for managing their online content. They think they can get away with paying less because they don't understand the implications of change."
"But it's very difficult for an in-house solution to keep up with changing technologies. An organisation that will try to evaluate where they should spend money might not do a change because it's too costly, and they won't realise what they're losing until the crunch comes and they're falling behind."
Integration between business applications is, of course, the key to making this happen, and it can be a harrowing process for companies new to the game. While many companies have built their own bridges for channelling data between inventory, order management, accounts and other systems, those systems typically fall apart when the business changes even a little bit. That's why it's important to work with a service provider that knows the game and can implement integration tools to match your business needs.
"At the moment, we have an industry that isn't learning," says Ross Liston, regional vice president of infrastructure provider interBiz. "There is still an eagerness to use emerging technology at the front of the business that doesn't have to do with business-things like really clever ways of presenting products, taking orders, and personalisation."
"They look at the total front end of the system and forget everything needs to be fulfilled. But if you're still running a pen and paper back-end e-business, you will fail. You may have short-term success, but not in the long term. Most companies that were in the industry for a while and got in trouble, got into that trouble because they couldn't manage their growth."
