E-Commerce: the 10 fatal mistakes 
By Andy Davies

My father always told me that a fool learns by his own mistakes yet a wise man learns by others. Well, by that standard, what a foolish industry IT is, especially when it comes to the 'e' sector!
The following list has been compiled from events and issues I have experienced while consulting across a number of industry sectors. I have saved the embarrassment of individuals and organisation by not naming any specific examples, but they are all real, and have occurred within the past 12 months.
While none of the points made will be totally new to anyone working within a project environment, the pressures placed upon 'flagship' ecommerce projects and programmes are immense and in the head-long rush to deliver; it's easy to take one's eye off the ball.

Stand Alone
	E-commerce systems and projects that are not concerned with the involvement, integration or co-existence with the whole of IT, may well deliver a quick win, however, in reality it is constructing a problem for the future that will be difficult, or more likely impossible, to resolve.
Stand-alone and poorly integrated systems lead to islands of data, and make the goal of straight through processing (STP) difficult to achieve, thereby stunting the growth, flexibility and future viability of the newly conceived ecommerce system. When constructing an ecommerce system, the first question to be addressed should be 'how will this integrate with my existing systems and access master data'. While it may not be fully possible to link the 'front-end' and 'backend' systems from day one, it is imperative that the ecommerce system is enabled for integration from its inception. Manual interfaces between systems is an unforgivable sin that should be avoided at all costs.

Big steps - little progress
	Some companies want to embrace all the promise of the e-world and want to achieve this enlightened state tomorrow, believing all the hype about an Internet year being measured in days, etc.
Big change costs big money and takes a fair amount time, as all the banks and large retailers are finding out. The safest and surest way to embark on the path to 'e' is to place a number of small bets, because not every venture will prove successful, there will be the odd one which doesn't fly. Start small and grow it quickly if successful. Wrap it up and bin it if it doesn't. The amount of change required within an organisation to embrace the digital economy is huge. Just the mindset of how to run a development programme changes drastically. However, many companies still want to try and transform the company overnight yet employ exactly the same processes they have been using for 15-20 years to develop their main-frame systems. My advice is start small and employ small highly skilled teams.

Lack of sponsorship
	As with all major projects and programmes, sponsorship is of critical importance. E-commerce programmes generally become highly visible due to the fact that they are there for all to see. And now, more than ever, everyone has an opinion about the way e-commerce should be conducted, from the security guard to the cfo.
Furthermore, due to the rapid pace of change, ecommerce programmes alter along the way and will inevitably cost more than the average project due to the amount of outside resources normally required (see below). Therefore, these programmes need a champion, beyond the product manager and preferably on the board of directors. These champions must not suffer from a faint heart or be nervous of large figures. If the champion isn't up to the job, or there isn't a big sponsor in sight, resign, refuse the assignment, do anything not to be associated with the project, because the only result will be failure.

Lack of skills
	A successful e-commerce system is most likely to be based on a component-based architecture (CBA), utilising object orientated programming languages (Java & C++), case development tools, object and system modelling design techniques, 'use case' based business analysis and a more iterative approach to development cycles and project management
	Most organisations do not have a technical workforce skilled in these disciplines and a significant number of the existing workforce will not effectively make the transition from tradition to CBA methods. Additionally, organisations which have been reluctant to train their workforce effectively for fear of higher salary demands, or higher levels of attrition, have become increasingly dependent on the contractor market.
The lack of skills is crippling many organisations' desire to implement ecommerce projects. I know of three IT companies actively recruiting hundreds of staff each with excellent packages and share options. With such competition where is the end user organisation going to get its resource? 

IT focused
	E-commerce and e-business is a partnership between business and technology The technology is providing new opportunities for businesses to be more effective and implement new business models. 
If an organisation lets its IT department lead such initiatives it will probably end up with excellent systems that do little to enhance or support business needs. Furthermore a business that limits its thinking to IT solutions is just not doing its job.

For e-commerce to be extremely successful, the two sides of the coin must work together, in unison, and not defend their traditional barriers. 

No roadmap or vision
	Without knowing where you're going you must be happy to end up anywhere, so the old saying goes. Many companies embark on e-projects without any clearly stated goal apart from the generic 'create a web-presence'.

A strategy is required with associated targets such as as increasing customer satisfaction, reducing the cost of supplier management, increasing internal efficiency, or reducing the time between order placement and fulfillment. This is the only way a business can actually monitor the effectiveness of its own e-business. The problem with just jumping on a bandwagon is that you're just as likely to fall off as you are to have a pleasant journey.

Me too
	So the business vision was to be a player in the e-commerce marketplace, to have a web presence, to enable the ceo to speak eloquently and at length about his e-strategy at the golf club, But one month after launch, no-one who visits the site 'sticks' or revisits.  All that money, all that effort - all this e-commerce stuff must just be a fad as all the sceptics said - better open a few more branches then 
The truth is, just having a 'web presence isn't good enough, neither is offering a service similar to a competitor as it is probably working on its next version and has already established an e-brand.
You need to he different, cheaper or better, preferably a mixture of all three. Achieving this is not easy and will require real vision and leadership, predominately from the business development people rather than IT. Remember, e-commerce makes it easy to look stupid at the speed of light.

Not designed for change
	The e-world only has one truism and that is: Change is inevitable and the rate of change will increase. Having a rigid or difficult-to-change technical architecture will massively impact customer service and the ability of the business to react to new market developments.
Scalability and flexibility are the two most important factors to consider when designing and implementing e-business Systems.
The key questions to ask are: 'What happens if I want to change my business rules next week?';  'what happens if our active users treble over the next three months?';  and 'what will happen if we introduce a number of transactions that are significantly more complex?'.
If these questions cannot be reasonably addressed, then the answer is simply 'the business will have a major problem'.

Just for customers
	Planning and implementing e-business systems provides an organisation with an excellent opportunity to examine and re-engineer its whole value-chain, including the processes utilised by employees, customers and suppliers alike. What a customer may actually want is greater efficiency that will lead to faster order fulfillment and lower prices, rather than the ability to track a particular order. These improvements would normally be achieved by providing 'joined-up' computing between a supplier and the order processing system. This is just as much about e-commerce and e-business as a website allowing a customer to email an order that is then manually input into the order processing system.

Losing sight
	While buried in the detail of building systems, integration, marketing strategies future product development, etc., it is easy to forget the simple reasons for undertaking the move into the e-world, As Patricia Seabold stated, it is simply 'to make it easier for customers to do business with you.
The net results of e-commerce can be viewed as the reduction in operational cost, greater efficiency, increased customer retention through improved customer service, and the ability to increase customer and supplier reach.
I once witnessed a product manager racking his brains trying to find a way he could 'lock in' his potential customers. Surely if you are offering a better service they will come back freely This is an example of old thinking not accepting a new approach to business and the new opportunities.
	Andy Davies is chief technology officer of Aconite Technology.