Procurement essentials 1 martin newman uk

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Procurement Essen.als:

A blueprint to e-‐commerce success

26th September 2011

Agenda

• Strategic developments in e-commerce and multi channel retail considerations for your business model

• Planning

• Challenges/issues

• Requirements gathering

• The RFP

• Supplier selection

• ROI

My deliverables today

• Insight

• Inspire

• Provoke

• Make more effective decisions

• Improve your ROI

• Reduce costs

• Have a better chance of getting live on time

• Mildly entertaining

My other involvement this week

• Tuesday: ‘Mind the gap’: Recruitment, retention and skills issues

• Wednesday: Technology panel, fashion panel, live site reviews

• Thursday: Website optimisation masterclass

A poor man’s Billy Connolly

And like Ronnie, I’ll go off on a tangent from time to time

About us

• Practicology is about providing actionable insight delivered by people who have done the job

• We’ve all been at the coal face: I have previously been head of e-commerce for Ted Baker, Burberry, Harrods and Pentland brands

• We’re a full service global e-commerce and multi channel retail consultancy

• We have clients in Australia, UK, US, Malaysia, Scandinavia, Germany, Croatia, Switzerland and Belgium

• International judge of Australia’s Online Retail Awards and Judge of Draper’s etail awards 2011

• Run E-Commerce UK (LinkedIn.com)

• Listed in Retail Week’s top 50 ‘etail power list’

We don’t rely on our looks to earn a living...It’s a good thing too!

What’s it like to work with us?

Client engagement stages

Denial: I don’t need any help

A client who recognises they need some help

A relieved early engagement client

Success: A post engagement client

Nirvana: A long term client

We don’t take ourselves too seriously but we take your success, very seriously

We’re setting up shop

You made a very good choice coming along today

Asides from having kids, or getting married, this could be the most important thing you ever do!

Still too much smoke and mirrors

• We took a global FMCG brand through supplier selection

• The same brief saw us get responses from $200k to over $3m!

Everything I tell you today, I’ve been through myself more than 25 times as a client and a consultant

E-‐Commerce: Current situa1on

Take figures with a pinch of salt

By 2019 online will deliver more growth than offline retail (UK)

Some Australian stats

•During 2010, shoppers have spent $10 to $12bn online, about 5% of total retail sales of $250bn. [Source: SMH.com, January 2011]

•It’s predicted that spending online will grow to $18bn by 2014 [Source: Frost & Sullivan, via SMH.com, Jan 2011]

•I’ve also read that current sales online are more than $20bn!

94% of the Australian population access the internet, 79% do so every day.

[Source: AIMIA / Sensis Social Media Report, May 2011]

Broadband web usage at home is driving adoption

Home is the no’s 1 place to access the web, but mobile will be the driver soon

Key online activities...with one obvious omission!

Fashion, followed by Electrical goods are the most researched products or services on social networking sites


36% of Australians made a purchase after researching products via social media. [Source: AIMIA / Sensis Social Media Report, May 2011]

57% of Australians search the internet for something to buy at least once a week and more

than half buy something online every month [Source: Digital Futures 2010, CCi, May 2010]

44% of online purchases are made to overseas retailers

And...

The combination of no GST, and the high dollar are challenging and leading to a retail war

on 2 fronts

With ever-increasing competition from International retailers on and offline...

Lulu Lemon’s first online localised proposition outside of North America will be in

Australia...and they’re opening more stores here

These guys want to eat your lunch!

So does Wiggle

And now they’ve opened an Australian site, they also want the roof from over your head!

They’re taking £1m a week in online sales from Australia!

I’ve seen big changes in the last year in Australian online retailing

You’ve got a lot to be proud of...some great innovation

Augmented Reality: Virtual mirror

Customisation (Shoes of Prey were there first)

See the camera in action

Demo of the camera’s

But some of your retailer’s are still well behind the curve

Keep your eye on the ball...the pace of change is frightening!

The big changes (This month!)

• Retailers no longer hold the power

• Consumers choose the channel of engagement

• And they expect a seamless experience through all channels

• So retailers must make the move from ‘multiple channel’ to ‘cross channel’

• Consumers are influenced by their peers, not by the retailer

• FMCG and CPG players looking to have a direct to consumer play to drive insight and sales

• Mobile is THE game changer

• Social Media is a service and engagement driver

• Internationalisation is all the rage...but localisation is required

• The gap between buying offline and online continues to narrow

The web has evolved....largely driven by broadband, wireless and more usable devices

Drivers of growth• The drivers for continued growth of sales online will be:

• Increasing broadband penetration

• Emerging International markets maturing

• Ever – increasing media consumption online

• Social networking and social commerce

• Smartphone penetration fuelling mobile Internet adoption

• The alignment of online and offline shopping experiences

• The convergence of technology....TV/Web

• Convenience of the shopping experience...driven by cross channel

• Online propositions localised for the needs of the local market

Define Requirements:Strategic Developments You Need To Plan For

Because if you don’t, you’re going to lose market share

In any case, you need to plan for tomorrow, not just today

Mobile Development

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• 75% of Australians using GPS devices are open to viewing targeted deals when visi.ng bricks and mortar outlets

• 41% of Australians using GPS devices are open to viewing targeted deals at .mes they select

• 83% of 18-‐34 year old Australians find geo-‐targeted content via mobile when shopping an appealing prospect

• [Source: Galaxy Research, via DMI, June 2011]

The majority of Australians have not bought using mobile...but that will change very soon

Payment for goods and services purchased via mobile handset (Source: Australian Mobile Phone Lifestyle Index, AIMIA, October 2010)

The HIPPO says ‘let’s have an iphone or an ipad app

All too often mobile is still a very tactical scenario

But it is driving ‘buyability’

Mobile = THE game changer!

In-‐store naviga.onMobile ac*ng as in-‐store

‘sat nav’ for shoppers with advice on where to find par*cular products or offers in-‐store

Proximity marke.ngRetailers can leverage loca*on-‐based marke*ng offers through

mobile

Barcode scanning/Image recogni.on

Tools which allow shoppers to add items to their online basket by scanning items in the home e.g.

Tesco’s grocery app

M-‐commerceDevelopment of mobile websites and apps which make shopping

online more seamless for shoppers

• 15% of Ocado’s sales during H1 2011 came from its smartphone app

•Debenhams took £1m through their iPhone app in the first 6 months

• River Island will take over £2m this year through their app

Supermarkets in Asia leading the way with pop ups

Developments in Asia lead the way

-‐ Over 500 of its most popular products, complete with QR codes which can be scanned using the Homeplus app-‐ Products range from daily essen.als such as milk and fresh produce, to pet food and sta.onery -‐ Orders placed before 13:00 will be delivered to customers' homes on the same day

The starting point for me...

How many retailers have a mobile compatible website?

Not many

Mobile can be the glue to bring customer engagement and the multi channel experience together

By 2015:50%+ of web access through mobile

By 2020: 80% of web access will be through

mobile

So you need to build mobile into your requirements and

your roadmap now

Mul1 Channel Development

99% of retailers are ‘multiple channel’

Multi channel just means more than one channel

‘Cross-channel’ is bringing together the strengths of each channel to create abetter overall customer experience

Multi channel is not about managing customer expectations

It’s about meeting customer expectations

The customer chooses the channel of engagement

Today‘s consumer is a multi-channel shopper

“Almost everyone is a multi-channel shopper, 86% regularly use more than one channel” – Leo Burnett, 2010 Multichannel customer research

Today’s consumer is a multi channel shopper

A multi channel proposition

Multi channel proposition on the PDP

The way we communicate has fundamentally changed

The purchase path is no longer linearPresales Information Product Availability Assistance Trans-action

Print

TV/Radio

Store

Internet

Letter

E-Mail

Telephone

Fax

SMS/MMS

Channels

Usage of channel Channel combination example of multichannel customers

• 63% research online before buying instore

• 89% who buy online also shop instore

• 20% of all online customers pick up their goods instore

• 29% researched offline before buying online

• Multi channel customers spent 3.5 times as much as single channel customers

• ‘Shop engagement is key’: Branch online orders grew by 130% in 2010

• The store is credited with the sale

• Click and collect growing at 2 x the rate of online sales

• Mobile drives 5m visits to the website

• A £3k bed was bought through mobile!

• Multi Channel Shoppers visit stores three times more frequently

• Multi Channel Customers are twice as loyal

Remember that the web is a sales driver for all of the

retailer’s channels, and not just a source of incremental

revenue...

•Ted’s cameras know that their website only represents around 5% of the company's total sales but it influences 50-60% of all sales made through all channels. •And it is because of this, that they realize integration across all channels is essential to provide a complete user experience•Dick Smith: 23% of online order revenue now picked up in store

13% now being picked up in store

The web is a huge driver for offline sales

There’s too much talk about multi channel and not enough focus on aligning the business with

the customer’s journey

Let me tell you a story...• Casino customer journey:

• Having breakfast I realise I’m out of milk and cornflakes so I order them on my iPad

• Then at lunch I remember I’ve forgotten to order juice for dinner so I use my PC to do so

• On the way to the store I then remember I need wine and I use my iPhone app to order

• In store I’m pinged a coupon offering me 50% off a different cereal as I’m standing in the aisle looking at cereal

• I also get a reminder on my phone that I haven’t bought

• Opticians/Optometrist customer journey

• Let’s imagine you were buying a new pair of glasses. What would be the optimum customer journey?

• I went online using my iMac at home to make an appointment to have my eyes tested

• I was also able to select a few brands of frames I might be interested in

• When I went into the store, the staff and the optician new who I was and had the frames I was interested in ready

• After my test and after I had selected a new frame, I was waiting for my glasses to be made up with the lenses when using an interactive in store mirror I tried on different sunglasses with different tints

• I bought them and I went home

• 2 weeks later I sat on my glasses and broke them

• I opened up the glasses case as I remembered there were contact details in there along with my customer reference

• I called the store, or maybe I went online, either way they had my prescription to hand and they made me up a new pair of glasses in 24 hours

• So keep this in mind when you start to define your requirements for your e-commerce platform

• If you’re a multi channel business, what might the optimal customer journey be?

The number one driver for customer’s is ‘convenience’ and the

other driver is ‘immediacy’

The optimal customer convenience proposition• Buy from the channel of choice: Online, in

store, by phone

• Return to the channel of choice…free

• Have your order delivered to the place of choice: Work, home, your store for pick up

• Have the order fulfilled at a time of their choosing

• Have your order gift wrapped with a gift card

This is happening right now

Think ‘omni channel’

Interna1onalisa1on

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• You can’t afford to only look inwardly• You need to extend your reach and take market share from new markets

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What’s the size of the prize?

This will bring a tear to your eye

•B2C e-commerce worth €591bn in 2010

•Up 25% from 2009

•Between 2009 and 2013, global e-commerce sales will more than double!

•Source: IMR World

What’s happening now?

Top 10 Countriessource: IMR World

The mature e-commerce markets in the US & UK will grow annually by 15% to

20% over the coming years (Source: IMR World)

“Yes, but a successful Internationalisation strategy is more than just language translation and currency conversion”

It’s a small world isn’t it?

4 strategies in play

1. Do nothing: Don’t allow anyone to buy from overseas

2. Standardisation: Switch on the buy button only

3. Adaptation: Localise some aspects

4. Localisation: Fully localise the customer proposition

Some of us find it hard enough selling domestically

Yes lot’s of us aren’t doing it at all

In the UK, 42% of us haven’t even switched on the buy button!

Source: Snow Valley delivery report

And most of us have only switched on the buy button and not localised the proposition = standardisation

Yet Debenhams are piloting multi lingual placards in store!

No sign of any International proposition

Hang on, here we go...deeply hidden within delivery info

Adaptation = localise some aspects

But adaptation is pretty half-hearted

Currency is the only thing to have visibly changed

Then there’s the full monty

Local language, payment, currency, customer service

A pretty compelling customer proposition

The results?

• Since launch, traffic to clarks.de is 4 times higher than previous, this includes traffic generated by PPC

• Conversion rate has grown from launch to become very similar to the UK site

• Returns rate is much higher than the UK..again due to German catalogue heritage

• Basket size and bounce rates are very similar on DE to UK

http://clarks.de/

http://clarks.de/

NET-A-PORTER/LIVE...Internationalisation before your eyes

The American’s are coming!

You can now buy in the UK from many leading US retailers

But they haven’t got the model quite right! Would you pay an extra 50% to cover

additional charges?

Hey, the World speak’s English!

No they don’t:‘Wie viel kostet dies?’

Why is it so important to give foreign nationals a local language site?

Cross border sales are growing...but localised propositions work best

Is it worth doing?

You better believe it!

Just ask ASOS...Free delivery worldwide!And International sales are up 161%

43% of their sales = £140m

Cloggs take 15% of total sales through Cloggs.eu = £2.55mWith France and Germany being the biggest markets

11Cs of Internationalisation• Country

• Customers

• Communication

• Culture

• Customer Service

• Competitors

• Currency

• Conversion

• Categories

• Content

• Costs

•Country

The United States of Europe...or is it?

If you want to know the difference just look at Eurovision!

• Different currencies

• Different payment methods

• Different values

• Different cultures

• Different tastes

• Different fears

• Different motivations

If you haven’t localised yet....Analyse existing web traffic patterns in order to make some informed assumptions around the opportunity from international markets

• Traffic x conversion rate x AOV = Sales potential

Tip: Start with English language sites

Customers

You need to meet the needs of different user groups who go about their journey in a slightly different way

Self service customers

Guess what the big drivers are?

Any tool that helps self service customer’s get in and get out quickly

Mega menu’s can take one or two clicks away from the path to purchase

Effective type ahead search

Guess what the number one driver for German customer’s is?

34% of Germans want speed and efficiency: (Source: atg e-commerce trends in Europe)

36% of Germans get annoyed by the checkout...they’re not alone

The things that annoy customers at the bag and the checkout...

Do you deliver abroad?

Ted ships to Germany and they give two options and tell me how much the total order will cost

If you are going to add on duty and other charges, make sure you show these on the bag, not in the checkout

At the bag I should know what the total cost of the order is, whether or not you do gift wrap and

gift message and what the delivery options are

Don’t force me to register

This is how to handle it

38% of French people want comparison shopping

But...size also matters

New or inexperienced web users

Reassure me, let me speak to a human if I need to! And....do you actually exist?

Difficulties reaching the organisation when they have questions is the biggest frustration in France and Spain

(38%)

20% of Brits like to read peer reviews and comments before buying

Ratings and reviews provide confidence and trust

Consumer trust in various sources of information and media: most trusted sources

[Source: Nielsen Social Media Report, February 2010]

Key drivers for new customers and/or inexperienced web users =

- Trust markers- Contact number- Your credentials

- What other people bought

What’s the customer proposition?

• Product/range the same?

• Category hierarchy and naming the same?

• Products, colours and styles the same name?

• Americanise the English on the US site

• Cross channel experience – Enable return to store in relevant markets?

What’s the customer proposition?

• What currencies?

• What languages? You can probably get away with an English language site for some EU markets such as the Netherlands and even Scandinavia

• What payment methods? Local market debit and credit cards as well as other options such as pay on invoice or bill me later?

• Enable customers to place orders over the phone?

• Price positioning…same pricing?

Culture

• Cultural variances of local markets can impact upon a number of considerations

Not the optimum image for the middle east

Simplicity suits the Swedes

ooh la la...the French prefer a bit of theatre

In Japan, shopping represents a social activity, an opportunity to meet friends and socialise.

Due to this social function and reluctance to use credit cards, online shopping has struggled to really take off in

Japan whereas M-Commerce has

• And of course, each country will observe its own public holidays and festivals:

• Basic operational issues and requirements such as the fulfilment of customer orders and handling customer service at these important times of year

Currency/Payment

Germans want to know:‘Can I pay using ELV?’

Europeans want to know:‘Can I pay in €?’

Scandinavians want to know: ‘Can I pay cash on delivery?’

A growing number of customers also want to pay using PayPal

The $ is still the global currency

• Can your PSP handle all of these requirements?

Most preferred payment methods

Top tip:Think global - act local

Social Media: What’s it all about?

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The term social media refers to the use of web-‐based and mobile technologies to turn communica*on into interac*ve dialogue and social interac*on that allow the crea*on and exchange of user-‐generated content

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User-generated_content

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User-generated_content

The rise of customer democracy

Facebook is particularly good for democracy!

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• An integrated online experience is now a key requirement rather than a nice-‐to-‐have

• Customers expect to swap effortlessly between online shopping (e-‐commerce pla^orms), social pla^orms (such as Facebook) and related online touch points

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‘Social shopping’: ‘F-Commerce’

The jury is still out on that one in terms of F-Commerce

However as a marketing tool it can drive sales

2011 Forrester research conducted over a 24 month period states:

It’s now all about ‘word of web’ as opposed to offline word of mouth

You already do it offline

• Meeting prospects• Building relationships• Asking questions• Answering questions• Building trust• Building your reputation

Business investment in social media is extremely low suggesting the approach is very tactical


Percentage of marketing budget allocated to social media average for medium and large businesses is less than 5%!


25% of Australian medium sized businesses have a social media presence, only 44% have a Twitter account =

That’s a lot of businesses with NO social media presence and a lot with no Twitter presence


Who is responsible for a business’ social media presence? = A real lack of customer service engagement through social


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The customer chooses the channel of engagement

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Tradi.onal outbound marke.ng

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Marke.ng today: In bound

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•It is our contention that it should penetrate the whole organization

•Social Media shouldn’t :

•Be a ‘campaign’ or a ‘tactical’ sales tool

•Nor should it only be customer facing

•Social media should :

•Embrace the internal business

•Harness the knowledge and insight available within those who don’t always have a voice or a vehicle to impart their knowledge through

Who has leveraged their employees knowledge and engaged them with

social media in their business?

•Their Best Buy Connect social media platform has the aim of showcasing their people, their culture and with unedited perspectives, presents a transparent picture of the business and its employees.

•It puts a truly human face on the brand, whilst increasing accessibility and driving transparency.

•This in turn can have a tremendously positive effect on current and future customer perceptions as well as on current and future employees.

Social media is a service driver and key customer retention tool

Think ‘local social’: Growing role of social interactions within customer

shopping missions Ability to drive footfall, advocacy and insight

Define Requirements ForMarrying Brand & Transac1ons

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It’s a thin line between ‘futurology’ and hallucina.on

Usability on its head

Case study: KiddicareHome page carousel

Significant incremental sales uplift:More than doubled (100%+) conversion on pages enabled

with 10CMS

Fits.me: Bridging the gap between the on and offline fitting room

Augmented reality is driving online furniture sales

What are you waiting for?Please don’t go for the ‘dip your toes approach’

You can leapfrog the competition now

Before you begin

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Do you have a roadmap and a strategy for e-‐commerce?

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If you don’t have a plan, then you are planning to fail

A Commercial Plan & Roadmap

• You need a plan for how you’re going to get from where you are, to where you want to be

• High level will do for the key building blocks

• Show how strategy, resource/people, marketing and technology will change over time

What Are The Big Internal Challenges?

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• There are many challenges and issues to address in order to implement successful e-‐commerce projects

• Projects fail typically due to issues on both the client and the supplier-‐side. Rarely are they only caused by one of the par.es

• From a client-‐side perspec.ve, the organisa.ons culture and people significantly impact upon the success or failure of an e-‐commerce implementa.on

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• On top of that, many issues arise from the lack of there being a seasoned e-‐commerce prac..oner on the board

• We have seen many examples (too many) where projects fall short of expecta.ons, fail altogether, or cost much more than an.cipated

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Why do e-‐commerce projects fail?• When there isn’t an experienced e-‐commerce prac**oner on the board, this oEen leads to key decisions being taken without the depth of insight required to support them. Issues can include: –SeJng unrealis*c expecta*ons. Forecasts are too high and unsubstan*ated. Timescale es*mates are too oEen incredibly op*mis*c

–An insufficient level of investment in the development of the channel

–The structure being ineffec*ve –The e-‐commerce channel is developed as a silo and not integrated with key business func*ons. The web drives visits to stores, and vice versa. This should be factored in

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Why do e-‐commerce projects fail?

• A lack of cross-‐func.onal teamwork (because it takes more than a head of e-‐commerce to deliver a successful web channel)

• For the best results collabora.on must take place between the following opera.onal units:

• Buying and Merchandising

• Marke.ng

• Supply chain• Fulfilment

• Customer service

• In-‐store personnel• IT and development team

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Why do e-‐commerce projects fail?

• Involving team members who need to interact with and be involved with the e-‐commerce applica.on too late (early stakeholder engagement is a necessity)

• Inadequate team skills (the speed and level of growth of e-‐commerce growth has meant there’s a shortage of skills across various remits)

• Overall resistance to change...for most people, change comes at a cost

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What can you do about it?• Proac*ve and forward-‐thinking businesses can prevent many of these piOalls and in doing so, save *me and money while crea*ng a smoother transi*on and implementa*on of e-‐commerce.

• Follow these steps for the best results: – Enrol key stakeholders in the planning phase, including execu*ves who will input into the vision and opera*onal stakeholders who will be involved day-‐to-‐day with suppor*ng the e-‐commerce opera*on. As a minimum try to involve in-‐store, e-‐commerce, supply chain, IT and marke*ng execu*ves from the outset. An experienced project manager / business analyst can play a crucial role in making things happen.

– Communicate the benefits of the channel to all affected opera*ng units ensuring everyone sees the benefit to them and to the business. Given the growth poten*al, this should be a simple task. Make everybody aware of the success stories in your industry, and what a joined-‐up approach can do for your business.

– Run stakeholder workshops and interviews assessing the impact e-‐commerce will have on remits and job tasks, func*ons and processes, and employee roles in the execu*on phase.

– Develop an opera*onal structure that maximises the opportunity and op*mised processes that minimise the likely impact caused by the change e-‐commerce brings to people’s roles

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• To be successful, e-‐commerce projects also require execu.ve-‐level sponsorship or senior leader consensus around the business need for the project

• Again the growth of e-‐commerce should make it a rela.vely easy task for project sponsors to again execu.ve level buy-‐in

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• You also need to ensure that the overall business strategy takes account of the impact that e-‐commerce has on all other channels of the organisa.on

• By demonstra.ng the poten.al for organisa.on-‐wide benefits it will be easier to build a business case, for budget and support

• Aher all, as demonstrated earlier, e-‐commerce is a driver of sales for all channels of the business

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•So don’t think of e-‐commerce as a silo, or an individual channel

•And if you can communicate this successfully then the board will see that the value of e-‐commerce and of the web channel in general terms is business-‐wide

•But consider that in-‐store personnel should be rewarded for genera.ng sales online otherwise they’ll stay in a silo mentality and will fail to support the business as a whole

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• If you don’t focus on geing stakeholder commitment and a clear understanding of the challenges and capabili.es required from the outset of your e-‐commerce project, you run the risk of spending too much .me and money at the back end of the project, trying to resolve internal problems

•So ensure you engage all stakeholders in the planning phase for e-‐commerce

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• You can select the best technology, have a clear vision and roadmap with regards to where you want to take the e-‐commerce channel, but if you don’t have an experienced and highly effec*ve project manager, your project will fall down in one or more of the following ways:

• •It will be late. This is preVy much guaranteed. We have seen a number of examples of poor project management that have seen sites go live a year aEer the intended go live date• It will be lacking in scope and therefore won’t be ‘fit for purpose’. Long-‐term thinking is required here. •Invariably it will be over budget, as it will run late, and may also require various aspects of code to be re-‐wriVen. •Your internal stakeholders will be dissa*sfied and may lose faith altogether in the e-‐commerce opportunity. •It won’t achieve it’s full poten*al in terms of revenue genera*on–(unfortunately, the significant organic growth experienced by most online retailers oEen masks the inefficiencies of their websites).

Define The Opera1onal Structure

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The different models

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• The different models:

• 1.Mid sized mul. channel retailers (Ted Baker, Mulberry etc):– Head of e-‐commerce tends to own much of the end to end process

– OEen co-‐owns fulfilment and logis*cs

– E-‐commerce developed as a ‘bolt on’ with dedicated opera*ons and services such as merchandising, marke*ng and customer service

– So this a classic ‘mul*ple channel’ retail environment, but not an integrated one

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• The different models: Con.nued

• 2.Large FTSE retailers (M&S, John Lewis etc):– The head of e-‐commerce is ohen responsible for everything on the website

– But board or opera.onal Director’s own different parts of the opera.on such as supply chain, merchandising, customer service

– It tends to be a more integrated scenario, but with some businesses such as M&S or John Lewis, home shopping or their ‘direct business’ un.l recently was a completely separate business unit

– The model below reflects where I believe most mul. channel retailers should be heading structure wise;

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• The different models: Con.nued

• 3.Groups/Mul. brand owners (Pentland brands, Arcadia):– The brands have their own management team ohen including a head of e-‐commerce

– The centre of the business provides a service to all of the brands across marke.ng, technology, supply chain etc. It’s a facilitator, whereas the brands own management teams actually trade the online business

• 4. Pureplays:– They do everything in the business. i.e. The full end to end process including the coding and web development side

• 5. The outsourced model:– This is where there is a small e-‐commerce team ohen only responsible for content and some trading aspects. Customer service, marke.ng, supply chain, fulfilment, the pla^orm are all outsourced to a supplier such as GSI commerce, PFS web etc

The Four Pillars

Based on the 4 pillars model: The optimal trading structure for

B2C

Project kick off

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• Schedule a kick off mee.ng with key stakeholders

• (project sponsor, project manager, project team etc) to develop the high level roadmap and strategy for e-‐commerce

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Create a steering group

• A recommended project team structure might look like this: – A project sponsor. Ideally someone at board level.

– A project manager. Someone in the e-‐commerce team.

– A project team: the head of e-‐commerce, the internal project manager (if you have one), the IT manager, someone from finance, the project manager from the agency, etc.

– A steering commigee comprising of key members from cross func.onal areas of the business that will impact upon e-‐commerce (finance, merchandising, opera.ons, fulfilment, etc).

• Ensure that each of the project team members has the necessary level of skills and experience and can commit the required level of .me to the project. 254

Documenta1on required pre and post supplier selec1on

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• A supplier contract with appropriate SLAs

• You’ll need a high level roadmap and strategy for e-‐commerce

• You will need a detailed financial plan

• Func.onal specifica.on. This will cover your e-‐commerce system capabili.es, func.onality, integra.on and interac.on with users. The details for both this and the requirements document will have been captured during stakeholder workshops and one-‐to-‐one interviews.

• Change request. This is usually a brief document outlining the objec.ve and requirements of the change, which is then circulated to the project team to respond with the proposed solu.on, cost, .mings and impacts.

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• Risk log and impact assessment. This is normally done in response to a change request. An impact assessment is where key opera*onal func*ons and departments review the proposed change to evaluate whether there will be an impact on systems, people or processes. Risks and issues are highlighted up front and managed appropriately.

• Resource plan. Create a GANTT chart and use it to ensure appropriate resource is available for e-‐commerce implementa*on.

• Cri*cal path and *ming plan. This covers the proposed *mescale for the project and helps to iden*fy dependencies of all ac*vi*es. This will let you put together the resource and *ming plan. You need to es*mate how long each element of the project will take. It’s always best to build in some con*ngency to the *meline for each key milestone, and use the cri*cal path as to con*nually measure your progress against the *meline.

• Tes*ng schedule. This will cover user acceptance tes*ng (UAT) as well as load and stress tes*ng the system and should cover tes*ng required as a result of change requests.

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• Tes*ng schedule. This will cover user acceptance tes*ng (UAT) as well as load and stress tes*ng the system and should cover tes*ng required as a result of change requests.

• Release schedule. A schedule of when changes are planned to be released to the website, ensures priori*es are met and that the appropriate test environments are available at the right *me.

• Project go/no traffic light. This highlights any outstanding requirements prior to go-‐live and provides a view of the status of these elements and they’re poten*al impact which is communicated by giving each item a red, green or amber status.

• Build a communica*ons plan. Review it regularly, and communicate frequently with all the key stakeholders. This is a key aspect of successful project management, and it will also help to ensure that all stakeholders remain engaged throughout the lifecycle of the project.

• Conduct risk assessment. It is wise to carry out a full risk analysis and document all risks in a risk register. You need to regularly review each risk to ensure you are managing them. If you have an internal audit department, then they are the ideal people to manage this aspect of the project.

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Requirements Gathering:Front End, Back End, Integra1on

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Timeline: 1 to 2 weeks

Process: Workshops & stakeholder interviews

Clientsite.com

Which stakeholders requirements should be captured?

• IT and system development resources

• Website design resources

• Buying & Merchandising resources

• Commercial planning and stock management resources

• Pricing and promotions management resources

• Content creation and content management resources, including photography and copy

Which stakeholders requirements should be captured?

• Product photography and artworking resources

• Online/digital marketing resources

• Order management resources

• Loss-prevention fraud-screening

• Customer contact management resources

• Warehousing facilities: Pick, pack and despatch resources, returns processing resources

• Parcel carrier service

• Reporting and control resources

What questions do you need to ask?

Brand/design

• What are the brand values and ethos, existing visual collateral, guidelines we need to consier?

• What aspirations, sites liked/disliked, etc?

• What brand experience do we need to create?

Front end• Site wide functionality

• Discuss functionality that runs across whole site

• Newsletter sign-up, email-a-friend, social links, recently viewed, mini basket, login, etc.

• Main Pages

• Discuss requirements for main site navigation, Home Page, Category & Brand landing pages, search and product listing pages

• Search

• How ‘sophisticated’ does search need to be?

• Does content other that products need to be returned in search results

• Guided (faceted) Navigation

• By which search facets should users be able to select/filter products?

• Single or multi-select facets?

• Products

• Discuss product range, and any special requirements relating to display of products/Brands on the site

• Personalisation

• What level of personalisation, if any, should the site support?

• Merchandising Tools

• How are the products to be merchandised?: manually, rules based, algorithm based, mixture…

• Promotions

• What promotions types, triggers, & targets does the platform need to support

• Checkout Pages

• Discuss the checkout process – single or multi-page, guest checkout, do or don’t’ promote other products in checkout, etc.

• General Site Pages

• ‘Static’ content pages: About us, contact us, Help/FAQ’s, etc.

• Customer

• What features & functionality will be in the ‘My Account’ session of the site

• What integration requirements are there around customer for other systems (OMS, CRM, other?)

• Wish List

• Will you have one? What level of functionality?

• Triggered Emails

• At which points should the site send emails to users (order, registration, shipping, abandoned basket, other?, etc.

• Content Management (CMS)

• Requirements for, who will use, authorisation workflow, etc.

• Product Information Management (PIM)

• Requirements for, who will use, authorisation workflow, etc.

• Order Management (OMS)

• Is one required? IF so, requirements.

• Stock

• Handling of out of stocks, back-orders?, stock level feeds?

• Shipping

• What will the customer proposition be here?

• Split delivery? Gift card & wrap?

• Where to?

Back End

• Which payments will be accepted? Paypal?, loyalty?

• Fraud?

• PCI Security

• Call Centre

• Outsourced or internal?

• Requirements for?

• Email Marketing

• Level of Integration with

• Integration

• To back-end systems (products, stock, orders, customer)

• 3rd party systems?

• 3rd Party Product Feeds

• Are these required, if so, details.

• Analytics

• Requirements for

• Reporting


• Hosting


• Account Management


Products and content

• Photography: Where and how will we do this?

• Rich Content: A fundamental requirement to drive sales...however it needs to be created to drive sales

• Exclusive Products: Could you offer some exclusive products online?

• Head or long tail products?

Logistics

• Outsource logistics?

• Packaging: Fit for purpose for B2C?

• Stockholding: Requirement to forecast

• Returns handling: Processes required to handle this

• Customer proposition to be determined: Matrix of existing delivery service levels to be produced

• Australia only to begin with?

Customer Care: Call centre

• Managing B2C customer services

• Service provision only?

• Or, also as an additional sales driver: Card sales, live chat etc?

• Operating hours

• Managing International calls

• Language and time requirements

IT and Integration

• ERP/legacy systems

• Stock management

• PIM

• CRM

• Other Data Services

• Ensure that the platform you choose can be easily integrated with other parts of your business, such as your CRM and product information channels

• Many companies are realising that sales and marketing functionality is increasingly important

• Your ecommerce solution should be the engine room of your online sales and marketing efforts, helping with customer acquisition, customer retention, cross selling and upselling etc

Roll Out

• Australia to begin?

• Then English language countries?

• EU when?

• White label?

The Supplier Selec1onProcess

Produce The RFP

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Timeline: 5 days with itera*ons

Process: Produced by head of e-‐commerce and IT director or by a consultant

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• Your e-‐commerce strategy needs to focus on the customer experience to ensure success and in order to make sure that you are doing jus.ce to your brand and differen.a.ng yourself in an increasingly compe..ve marketplace

• Does your company really understand what your customers want?

• Are all the necessary stakeholders within your company feeding in to your e-‐commerce strategy to ensure that you have an integrated approach

• Is the supplier on the ball in terms of usability and accessibility?

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Are you thinking about what the customer wants?

1. Introduction

• State your objectives and provide clear guidance on expectations

• The X Shop has ambitious plans for their growth online, and is considering a new platform to help them achieve this. They have a desire to be live by pre-Christmas 2011. This will require a new site design, and this requirements document is to be used as an RFP for both design and platform

• However, any particular vendor may respond to either one or the other aspect, or both

• Please make clear in your submission which aspect(s) you are tendering for, and how the cost is allocated between them

2. This Requirements Document

• This document sets out X Shop’s requirements for their new transactional websites. It uses the MoSCoW ratings approach for the level of requirement as follows:

• M – ‘Must Have’

• Clear requirement for first phase launch of site

• S – ‘Should Have’

• Ideally part of the 1st phase launch, but as long as the Functionality was confirmed deliverable shortly after launch, could form part of a 2nd phase launch

• C – ‘Could Have’

• Indicates Functionality X Shop might like to have, as long as the cost & complexity were reasonable. It would be helpful to know how your platform could deliver this Functionality, but could be phase 2 or even 3 releases.

• W – ‘Won’t Have’

• Indicates Functionality X Shop don’t need now, or in the medium term.

2. This Requirements Document

• Of course, it would be great if everything contained in this document were ready & available for immediate launch at modest cost

• However, since this might not be the case, the winning tender is likely to be the company that is able to deliver the largest portion of Functionality, at the earliest time, for the lowest cost

• Where the proposal is to phase the delivery of functionality, please quote separately for the Must Haves, the Should Haves, and the Could Haves

3. The Tender Process• We aim for this to be a very clear & transparent tender process, with each vendor

ranked against the following key criteria:

• Your proposal

• Functional Fit ‘out of the box’

• Ability to deliver any outstanding Functionality

• Time frame for delivery of all agreed Functionality, over 1 or 2 phases

• Project Management approach

• Ability to service & support the site on an on-going basis

• Contract terms

• Client references

• Costs

• For the design element, the ability to translate X Shop’s brand values into a high-conversion transactional site with great usability and accessibility.

• Please ensure your proposal responds explicitly to the requirements in this document – ideally in the same order (and with the same outline numbers) presented here, as well as directly addressing the key criteria listed above

• Submissions that are just standard marketing about your platform, and don’t respond to the specifics will be judged poorly

• Please demonstrate clearly how your proposal delivers these requirements, and back this up with screen-shots of back-end systems & live websites that demonstrate the Functionality purported.

• In general, the tender process will have 3 phases:

• 1 – Review received proposals and evaluate against criteria listed above, in order to reduce list of ‘possibles’ down to 2, or at most, 3 options.

• 2 – Full-day on-site visits with short-listed options, where full demonstrations of the systems (not just PowerPoint!) will be expected, as well as commercial discussions and ‘cultural fit’ can be gauged.

• 3 – Due diligence and customer references for the best-fit options, in order to evaluate the winning tender.

• All submissions should be in electronic form, and emailed to

3.1 Timeline

• A somewhat more legible, landscape version of the above is on the last page of the document. However, the high-level plan is for:

• 1) Discovery/Design to begin XXX 2011

• 2) Build to begin XXX 2011

• 3) UAT XXX 2011

• 4) Go-live XXX 2011

3.2 Cost basis

• Please note The X Company is looking for a fixed price quote for this project, not a T&M estimate

• This quote will of course be dependant on a detailed discovery phase, but we would hope that the price after discover varies no more than 10-15% from your quote during the tender process

• If your quote is on any other basis, please make this explicitly clear, as the assumption will be fixed price, and this will be the basis of all discussions going forward, unless agreed otherwise.

3.3 Confidentiality

• The contents of this document should be considered commercial in confidence, and are not to be distributed outside of those in your organisation required to prepare a response

• You’d want them to sign a NDA

4. The Brand• The X Company wants to grow their online their business to account for

15-25% of their overall business within 3 years

• The X Company wish to differentiate themselves online by listening to their customers and provide high quality customer service. They want to be seen as offering good value for money, bringing to market exclusives, first to offer products, whilst maintaining excitement and an element of surprise amongst their customer base.

• They have identified 3 main reasons why customers come to their current site:

• For replenishment

• To browse

• To Indulge

• X is seen as a very personal purchase; the X Company want to try and create some of this experience online via for e.g. personal customer stories so it is more than just about product and price.

5. Website Functionality

5.1 General

5.2 Site wide functionality

Newsletter/email sign up: How not to do it!

Social bookmarks/links

Recently viewed

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Consider adding a basket lightbox when item added to basket

An intui.ve CTA to:1.add to cart or •con.nue shopping

Also a great opportunity for cross selling

How not to do a mini basket

This is how to do it

Dynamic FAQs

Live Chat

Intuitive error messaging and form filling guidance

5.3 Main Pages

This is above the fold

Meets the needs of all user groups and all above the fold

Meets the needs of all user groups

Strong calls to action

- Where are the calls to action?- Bestsellers...new in...

- Only one product in clear view above the fold

A 3x2 grid increased conversion by 15% over a 4x3 grid...again less is often more in this space!

Where are bestsellers, new in, customer favourites?Look at the size of the images compared to Schuh

no filters....give me a hand please!Style, occasion, price, size etc

FC AS Theory Tommy CT GANT

Persuasive product descrip1on

Good quality product image with zoom

Mul1ple views of product image inc model

Product price

Size op1ons

Stock and availability

Delivery price and op1ons

Expected delivery date

Clear ‘Add to Basket’

Wishlist / forward to a friend / social

Customer ra1ngs and reviews

Returns Policy

Sizing Chart

Email me when back in stock

Cross-‐sells / up-‐sells / complete the look

SEO H1 / H2 Tags

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How not to do it

5.4 Search

Site conversion from search:Retail average is 7.6%

(General retail average conversion is 4.23%)

A search for ‘delivery’

Sort by...

Effective type ahead search

5.5 Faceted Navigation

Search for ‘jeans’ with all relevant filters and facets

A search for gifts

My search for jeans

Look what happens when I search under ‘denim’....and how the heck do I narrow my choice down to make a purchase decision?

There should never be a ‘null search’ return

5.6 Products

Visual merchandising: Has a massive impact on conversion

Myla Model choice

She is way too skinny…. Almost anorexic. It’ll be a put off for a lot of customers.

Model ChoiceHealthy, curvy, volump.ous and olive/dark skinned models sell lingerie. AP, Boux and M & S

Good visual merchandising

Image Size

• Each product displays only slight discernable differences to each other, fit, stripe, check, cuff, collar etc…

• Informing the customer of these style differences quickly is very important in the customer journey

• Online, the visual merchandising has to convey the product detail and brand values of quality to the customer. Image size is critical to this

Image Size

On product listing …difficult to discern product detail… check or strip?

Image Sizes

• TP image size on product listing and product detail page is the smallest of those reviewed. -40% to the average (of those reviewed) on both product listing and product detail page.

• Image size is too small to get across the quality and design details of the product and does not sit with brand core values.

• Net a Porter images on product listing nearly 3 x that of Thomas Pink.

• On the whole, retailers trading on quality/ designer have 3 images across on their product listing.

Easier to discern now

Image Size – Product detail

Only at zoom stage can you see that product is checked.

Only at zoom stage can you make out that the product is striped and understand the quality of the garment… it also has piping detail.

Image Size.

Now there’s no ambiguity

Image Size

•On tailoring with high selling prices … the small images do not validate the product quality. It is difficult to get any sense of quality

•The banner gives some quality assurance and reference

Nice consistent imagery!

Shots need to be retouchedToo many shots don’t sell the product effectively

enough

5.7 Merchandising Tools

Cross selling increases conversion and the ATV

5.8 Promotions

5.8.1 Promotion type

5.8.2 Promotion Triggers: How you get it

5.8.3 Promotion target: Who’s entitled to it

5.8.4 Promotions in the basket

Only £25 away from free next day delivery...question is, how much is delivery?

Source: Smart Insights

• 3 testing options for Remarketing with a classic abandoned shopping cart follow-up email, but with 3 alternative follow-ups which were tested with these results:

1. Generic branded follow-up email : +10% conversion rate

2. Personalised remarketing email with a promotional code for a 5% discount time limited to 72 hours: +100% conversion rate

3. Personalised remarketing email with a promotional code for a 5% discount time limited to 48 hours: +200% conversion rate

5.9 Customisation/Personalisation

5.11 Checkout

The Shopping bag and checkout are where you lose most of your sales

Shopping Bag Page

46.4% of customer’s don’t even make it from the bag to the 1st stage of the checkout...

why?

Why do they abandon here?•No delivery options•No delivery info to total order value•No idea whether or not I can add a gift message?•Gift wrap message is hidden/too small•They may not have a promotional code but think they should have•Data capture is just a distraction•Difficult to see update basket or continue shopping buttons•Not everyone is ready to buy

5.12 General Site Pages

5.13 Customer Pages

5.14 Wishlist

5.15 Social

6. Back end functionality

6.1 CMS

6.2 Product Information Management

6.3 Order Management

6.4 Stock

6.5 Shipping

6.6 Payments

6.7 Call Centre

6.8 Email

6.9 Triggered emails

6.10: B2B Functionality

6.11 Affiliate and Campaign codes

The system should enable the set-‐up of affiliate & campaign codes, which can be assigned to each affiliate or PPC campaign, and tracked by the system, via the analy*cs tags, through to the campaign management repor*ng in the analy*cs applica*on.

The system should support best-‐prac*ce affiliate and campaign tracking (the repor*ng and analy*cs of this will be done through the 3rd party analy*cs package, but the site database & HTML should be coded sufficiently, and with enough granularity, to feed the analy*cs package appropriately, and the affiliate/campaign codes wriVen to the customer & order tables so they can be reported on locally.

7. Integration with back end systems

8. A/B and multi variate testing

9. Mobile• The X Company is interested in incorporating a mobile approach into their

overall Digital Strategy. Initially the main site should be built to be accessible via a mobile device. They would like to explore creating a device specific mobile app to provide for e.g.

• Stores near me using GPS

• Use of SMS to notify customer of order status

• Experimentation with QR codes

• Looking to implement PDAs/tablets for staff in-store as used in Apple Store.

• Need to be able to reskin main website

• It should be device and browser compatible & integrated with mobile payment gateways

• Overall requirements TBA

10. Analytics

11. Reports

12. Account Management

• While this document has focused on platform functionality, we can’t stress enough the importance of on going account management as a selection criterion for this project. As part of your proposal, please describe and confirm the following key points:

• Who would be our named account management team, and what are their responsibilities?

• Is this person/are these people technical, commercial, or both?

• What do you offer, on an on-going basis, as far as best practice and innovation, for example?

• What is your development road-map for your platform and services?

• What direct access will we have to technical support staff, and during which days/hours?

• Please describe your process for handling bugs/issues, and change requests, and how the two are defined and delineated

• Do you have standard SLA’s around account management? If so, please describe these

13. Hosting• When explaining your hosting proposal, please, as a minimum, confirm the following:

• Your recommended hosting architecture for a ‘minimum’ & ‘optimal’ solution

• Bear in mind that even minimum hosting must reach the performance requirements mentioned below

• The operating system, and any 3rd party software required to deliver your solution

• What monitoring & alerting processes are available

• What support options are available

• Your experience with load balancing web servers (hardware and/or software – please confirm) and clustering databases

• Please give specific examples and references for your claims here

• Performance is expected to delivery page load times no greater than x seconds on a 512k broadband connection

• Downtime is expected to be no greater than 0.5%

• What business continuity and disaster recovery procedures do you have in place to support downtime SLA of 0.5%?

• 24/7monitoring with helpdesk and alerts support

• Cloud or dedicated hosting with scalability for peak traffic

• SQL database(s)

• Multiple redundant DNS and SMTP servers

• Manage multiple B2C & B2B ecommerce storefronts, corporate sites, micro-sites, extranets, forums, and blogs from one central platform

• Individual web stores can have different or same designs (or mixture of), same or different functionality, different or shared content

• Host different domain and manage and share content across these; either shared or exclusive

• New version rollouts on bi-annual basis

• Supports sharing of customers across multiple web stores with a single registration, facilitating shared baskets across sit

• Please describe the various SLA’s agreement offered, and the associated costs

• Security

Select Vendors:Pla\orm providers, System Integrators,

Design Agencies

Supplier Selec1on

425

• Timeline: 4 weeks in total

• Process: –Give them the RFP and 2 weeks to respond

–Take 3 days to review responses–Take 2 to 4 days to conduct due diligence with full day demos

–Score the vendors and make a decision

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• How ‘future-‐proof’ are the vendor’s technologies?• Is your technology easy to use and manage (so that you will not be incurring extra costs and stretching your internal resources on a regular basis)?

• Has the pla^orm been built with Search Engine Marke.ng in mind?

• Web analy.cs are important to ensure that you can measure what is happening so you can adapt and grow accordingly. What kind of capabili.es does the pla^orm have in this respect?

• – Will the analy.cs give you the level of granularity you need?

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Some ques.ons to ask at the outset...

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• Find out what kind of repor.ng comes as standard and what will cost you extra

• Are there features in the pla^orm that you don’t need on Day 1? Understanding how much these will cost to implement once the site’s live will help you plan your budget and your approach to market

•Will you be geing the level of strategic consultancy you are hoping to make sure that the technology is working for you at an op.mal level?

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• If you are using an agency, are you convinced that they have the project management capabili*es to deliver your requirements on *me and within budget?

• Are you prepared to pay more to get an agency with a proven track record in your market sector?

• Are the capabili*es real or planned? Make your assessment evidence based, relying on what they agency has delivered, rather than on what they say they can deliver.

Main Process Steps

• Agree the scope of what this procurement process covers

• Define your requirements• Priori.se your requirements• Invite proposals specifically against these requirements

• Objec.vely manage the tender process, & score op.ons against your requirements

• Ensure non-‐func.onal requirements are evaluated along with func.onal ones

Agree the scope of what this procurement process covers

• There are a lot of different elements (and possibly 3rd party tools) that can form part of an eCom pla^orm (the graphic on the right is only a part – doesn’t include Order or Warehouse Management, for example)

• So be clear what the remit for this project is. Does it cover all of these items, or just a subset?

• Can some of them be evaluated in a 2nd phase aher launch, or are they intrinsic to the projects success?

• Which ones are ‘core’ to the pla^orm, & which ones possibly ancillary add-‐ons

Define your requirements

• Once the scope is defined, you can dig down into the detail of the requirements for what is in scope

• Remember, if you ask for the world, expect to pay for it! So think carefully about what really is going to make a difference to how you run your business

• Watch out for func.onality that sounds great, but that you’ll never get ‘round to using

A ‘typical’ Prac.cology RFP Contents List

Priori.se your requirements

• Unless your check-‐book is open-‐ended, priori.se!

• You won’t be able to do it all, so make sure what you do get is what you need, and will deliver an acceptable ROI

• Remember, the best way to increase the risk of a project failing is to try to do too much in one go–I’m not sugges.ng to lower your ambi.ons, but if you can phase the delivery, you’ll have much beger chance of success

Invite proposals specifically against these requirements

• Vendor’s love to sell you what they think their good points are

• That’s fine, but might not match up with what you need

• Make sure they respond specifically to your requirements, and if they make it to the demo stage, that they do demonstrate how they will deliver these requirements

Objec*vely manage the tender process, & score op*ons against your requirements

• Each qualifying proposal is likely to have its’ own strengths (and weaknesses), so how do you weigh these up and compare them?–First come up with a reasonably granular list of criteria, and then priori.se these criteria

–Score each op.on against each criteria, & independently of whatever score they get on other criteria, & then do the math!

• Ensure the whole process is as open & transparent as possible, with each vendor being given the same informa.on as everyone else

Ensure non-‐func*onal requirements are evaluated along with func*onal ones

• Cultural fit• Do you like them?

• Contract terms

• Payment terms

• Total cost of ownership• Domain experience

• Thought leadership • These are all valid evalua.on criteria, and should be included along with the func.onal

Ensure you are comparing like for like

Objec.ve Scoring Matrix

Discovery Phase

440

• Timeline: 2 to 4 weeks

• Run workshops to detail and capture what is actually going to be built–Informa.on architecture

–Customer journey

–Customer experience

–Integra.on etc

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Be careful!

• NEVER sign a contract before you have gone through a detailed discovery phase

• Only then can you know the true cost of what’s going to be delivered

• And only then can you feel fully comfortable with their ability to deliver

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Pla\orm choices

Some UK vendors

Your biggest challenge here is finding good SI’s

Build Approaches

•Waterfall–Spec fully up front–Only start build when signed off–Can be ‘fixed price’ – but be clear on this with vendor!

Pros•(should be…) very clear what you will be geing•Vendor should be able to give accurate quote based on detailed spec•Test scripts and user acceptance criteria can be based on same document

Cons•Huge, .me consuming, lengthy, & costly effort to document in enough detail•You may not know all the answers you need to complete spec at the .me•Rigid spec that needs change management control to amend

Build Approaches

• Agile–Build the essen.al frame work first–Fill in details as you go–By defini.on is Time & Materials priced

Pros•Much quicker path to prototyping site, where you can see what you will get sooner•Changes much more easily accommodated•Should be overall lower cost & quicker development

Cons•Client doesn’t have clear, documented list of what they will get for what price ahead of .me•Risk moves to client (but hence lower cost)

What Pla^orm Op.ons are there?

• ‘True’ Sohware As A Service (SaaS)–I say ‘true’, as several claim this, but almost no-‐one is–‘Ideal’ is single version of pla^orm, that every client is on

–That way simpler to maintain–Everyone gets access to updates–But

•Much harder to customise• You have the same as everyone else. Limited compe..ve differen.a.on


• Fully Managed–Eg: Venda, BT Fresca–Vendor provides hos.ng as well as pla^orm.–Typically (almost) all clients are on same version of sohware (or at least that is the inten.on)

–There is usually fixed monthly flat fee, plus some turnover/transac.on charging/%

–Is simpler for budge.ng, and can some.mes get launched quicker

–But generally limita.ons in flexibility, as vendor tries to align func.onality across all clients


• Dedicated–Can be any plaôrm that runs independently in it’s own instance (eg: hybris, Magento). Essen.ally anything other than SaaS or Fully Managed plaôrms

–Client might host through arrangement with plaôrm vendor, but can also make independent hos.ng arrangements

–Client fully in charge of own des.ny, as far as bandwidth, cpu, integra.on points in & out of environment

–But also, dependent on plaôrm efficiency, can get expensive on hos.ng as client takes all responsibility to ensure enough horsepower to run site


• Shared–A hybrid/lower cost version of fully managed & dedicated

–Vendor manages hos.ng, and splits cost of hos.ng across a number of clients

–Obvious cost advantages, and for low volume can be suitable

–But spikes from other clients can affect your site’s performance, and you may have limita.ons based on your traffic so you don’t adversely affect others

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ROI

• E-‐commerce pla^orms can help organisa.ons ...

• Drive revenue online and instore• Boost visitor numbers/improve customer acquisi.on

•– Improve search engine op.misa.on

•– Increase conversion rates•– User friendly technology•– Improved informa.on architecture

•– Less drop-‐outs/abandonments

•– Improved site search capability

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ROI

• Increase basket value•– Upsell and cross-‐sell func.onality•– Relevant promo.ons

• Improve customer reten.on•– Customisa.on and personalisa.on

•– Dynamic pricing and merchandising

•More accurate and granular repor.ng to boost understanding of most profitable product lines/products

• Improve processes and produc.vity...speeding

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ROI• Reduce costs

– Increased automa*on/streamlining of business processes

– Reduce or remove need for internal IT resources

– Scalable technology without need for major investment later on

– Pay for what you use (on-‐demand solu*on)

– Reduced call centre costs though beVer service online

• Improve branding– BeVer customer experience

– Faster website

– Seamless experience across channels (e.g. call centre synchronisa*on)

– Tried and tested technologies

• Improved website design– Less cluVer

– Economy of processes

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Costs?

• 25k to over $2m• The business model drives the cost

• Integra.on is ohen the key

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•Build the site...•Timeline 4 to 6 months

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It’s not easy! Get some qualified help if you can

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• Download the workshop here from 7pm this evening:

• hgp://www.prac.cology.com/index.php/member/register

• Password is: prac.cology1

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http://www.practicology.com/index.php/member/register




Thank You!

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Procurement essentials 1 martin newman uk

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