Organizations looking to implement an effective eCommerce strategy often struggle with selecting the appropriate vendor and rolling out the solution efficiently. Info-Tech Research Group has released a new resource – the eCommerce Platform Selection Guide to support IT and organizational leaders facing this challenge.
Benefits and Challenges of Selecting an eCommerce Platform
eCommerce is an essential tool for organizational operations and is part of a holistic customer experience strategy. However, selecting the right platform is a daunting task. Despite its importance, many organizations fail to define an approach to selecting the most suitable vendor which can lead to problems with the eCommerce strategy’s execution. IT often takes the blame for platforms that fall short and fail to deliver customer expectations.
The Importance of an Aligned Approach to eCommerce Platform Selection
To implement a suitable eCommerce solution, a roadmap that outlines milestones for configuration, security, points of implementation, data migration, training and ongoing application maintenance should be created. Info-Tech Research Group has assembled use cases to help guide selection and ensure strong integration points between eCommerce and other software, such as customer relationship management (CRM) and point of sale (POS). Austin Wagar, research analyst at Info-Tech Research Group, highlights that IT needs to be a trusted partner in the selection and implementation of an eCommerce platform for an aligned approach, with the business involved from the start.
Creating a Comprehensive Process for Selecting and Implementing an eCommerce Platform
The selection of an eCommerce platform should be part of an organization’s overall customer experience management strategy. The company must define target capabilities, prioritize requirements across functional categories, determine the architecture model, and develop a comprehensive request for proposal (RFP) that can be scored in a weighted manner. Info-Tech Research Group emphasizes that eCommerce solutions should be part of a wider ecosystem to be effective.
To access the complete research, IT and organizational leaders can download the eCommerce Platform Selection Guide from Info-Tech Research Group.
Info-Tech Research Group has been serving over 30,000 IT professionals, delivering unbiased and highly relevant research to help CIOs and IT leaders make well-informed decisions. Developing an inclusive and thorough request for proposal (RFP) process is a critical part of eCommerce platform selection and implementation. Following the seven steps as outlined in the report will support organizations in their efforts to manage their RFP process.
Conclusion
The eCommerce market is volatile, which makes it tough to keep pace with the industry’s changes and stay ahead of the curve. However, ECommerce is essential for improving a customer’s online shopping experience, and an organization’s overall customer experience management strategy should drive the selection of an eCommerce platform. IT’s role must be as a trusted partner in the selection and implementation of the right eCommerce platform. Creating a thorough process for selection and implementation is therefore critical to a successful eCommerce strategy.