Your new
e-commerce website will have an impact on your offline business.
The level of this impact is determined by the type of site you
choose.
The buzzword here is "integration". If you get the
integration planned correctly, the new globalisation of your
business should run smoothly. As an example, how will you cope
with an electronic order? if it is sent to your email address,
can you easily process it? how frequently do you check your
emails? Even this will take time out of your working week. What
you really need to analyse is your current business system.
How good is your current system?
Is your current system able to handle any level of technology or
does it clash, do staff have the ability to access their
business areas quickly and simply? Are your suppliers able to
work online? There are many items that can be listed here, again
we have just covered the ones common to most businesses.
Business Infrastructure:
A further effect on your business
will be the shifting duties of your staff. If your website is
just an information portal, then your staff will be expected to
have as much product knowledge as the person reading the product
information on the website. Indeed, managers should know exactly
what page to send a client to for particular information.
If the website is more of a business extension, then further
staff adjustments are required. What resources are going to be
required on a day to day basis? Are there going to be daily
updates, weekly updates, perhaps? Can your existing staff be
retrained to deal with the new online presence or does it need
new staff to handle it?
Much of this is down to prediction. With prediction walks
error. To counter any errors it best to start with the minimum
requirements then add to the website as you go along, any good
web developer will create a website with the facility to
seamlessly add on additional sections as required.
