System integration is the key to managing your e-commerce business and not just your website
Websales are key to any retail business, but e-commerce is not just about the shopping basket and the parts of the website that the customer sees. In a recent article, President and CEO of NetSuite, Zach Nelson, raises many valid points. He says you must ensure that your whole business can support the sales process through the efficient integration of your website, front-office and back-office systems.
Zach’s article advises 2 main things to think about:
1. What information is available at various stages of the process
2. The speed at which information is available
There will always be questions that cannot be answered by your website. You need to ensure that when a customer calls, customer support and administration staff have enough information to be able to respond to the enquiry effectively. Central customer information, such as a customer account, can also show what sort of experience each customer is having, whether good or bad. It can identify your good customers that you want to retain, and warn you about your bad ones!
Your Marketing department also needs enough information about your customers and how they are using your website to be able to understand what your customers want and need, so they can direct your business where it will be most effective.
If you have this sort of information available, how quickly is it being transmitted between systems? Customers expect instant results and are disillusioned when information such as stock levels are incorrect. This can also incur un-necessary costs for your business when you cannot fulfil customer orders. Real-time data can make the difference between an average business and an efficient, streamlined business that customers want to come back to, and effective integration between your systems can help you achieve this.
System Integration is one of the areas we specialise in, as it helps business owners get the most out of their existing IT – and it doesn’t have to cost the earth. We see a lot of cases where 2 or 3 good systems are doing a decent job individually, but where greater benefits could be realised if they simply shared information efficiently between them. If you would like any advice on how to get your systems talking to each other, or would like to arrange a free visit from one of our consultants, please go to www.eximium.net/contactus.asp
To read Zach’s full article see www.inc.com/resources/technology/articles/20070501/nelson.html
This entry was posted on Friday, May 23rd, 2008 at 12:57 pm and is filed under Articles, Business Advice, IT Advice, IT Consultancy . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
