Throughout my career the reservation I have when being asked to develop an e-business or e-commerce system for an organization because they think it’ll give them a competitive advantage is geared toward their business process, customer service and support. Adding these types of systems will drastically change the way we do business and change their internal work flow processes. So I ask, what measures, if any are going to be put in place to support (at the executive level) these systems internally.
Next there’s customer service. In these situations, my concern with customer service is whether or not an organization’s current customer service process can support these type of systems. These systems can increase customer service bandwidth and the need for more customer service policies.
Then there’s support. In these situations, I am also concerned with the amount of resources needed to support these systems. If organizations do not have the resources internally, then they’ll need to hire new staff member(s) or hire a consultant, a cost that is underestimated. Then I check an organization’s technology infrastructure. If they do not have the capacity to handle these systems then they’ll need to upgrade their infrastructure or have the system hosted by a third-party which can be costly as well.
The point that I’m trying to make is that technology should be used to drive a business. When you’re evaluating what type of system you should bring into your organization, it should fit your strategic plan and not simply because it’s what everyone else is doing.
Tim Richardson 