Information Sheets > Checklist for Success

Successful electronic commerce depends on a delicate blend of business and technical issues. The headstrong will spend a lot and gain little. The timid will miss out on one of the great step-changes in modern business. Our checklist for success will help you tread the tightrope in between.

IDENTIFY LIKELY TRADING PARTNERS

It takes two to trade electronically, so make sure your potential customers, suppliers or business partners are online. Unless you are very lucky, you will not persuade everyone to get wired, but you need critical mass to make it cost-effective.

MAKE IT FIT

Consultants call it "aligning with business processes", which means making e-commerce fit in with your business - and, if necessary, being prepared to meet it halfway. Crucially, you will need to re-examine your position in the supply chain.

Businesses need to understand why they are there and why someone is prepared to pay them for the job they do. Smart intermediaries are changing to add more value.

You also need to INTEGRATE e-commerce into your MARKETING STRATEGY and PUBLICISE your Web and e-mail addresses on advertisements, stationery and product packaging.

GET MANAGEMENT SUPPORT

As with most innovative technology, it pays to have a "champion" on the board of directors who can ensure that realistic business goals are set.

ASSESS THE RETURN

A frightening number of businesses go online without really knowing why they are doing it, how much it will cost them or how soon (if ever) they will get their money back. As far as possible, e-commerce investment should be treated like any other.

Try gathering statistics - the number of "hits", where people look, how long they stay, what information they ask for and what (if anything) they buy. Get people's e-mail addresses or other contact details and ask where they heard about your site.

According to IDC, it is not unusual for a big company to invest 1% - 2% of its total IT budget in a site. But they may have to be patient. You have to be investing long-term. A present day Web site has to be an opportunistic advert.

RELIABILITY

E-commerce sites are expected to be as dependable as a telephone system - available round the clock, with 99.999% reliability. An unreliable system, such as an ill-designed one, reflects badly on your business.

Speed of access if also critical. You can't afford to put your toe in the water in an amateurish way, for it to be a lower quality service than people get from an 0800 phone number or face to face.

SECURITY

Security will protect you and your trading partners. Without it, they will not feel safe and are less likely to trade with you at all.

Much attention is focused on taking money online and the implementation of security standards such as SSL and SET. But security of information is just as important. E-mail is about as private as a postcard, so sensitive or confidential information must be encrypted. Customers who part with personal information need to be sure that it will not be misused or disclosed.

Authorisation, by password or dial-back, may also be necessary when people dial into your internal systems or visit a private area of your Web site. But customers may not always want to identify themselves and may prefer anonymity. Prying may scare them off.

TAKING THE MONEY

The majority of e-commerce payments are not made online, so it is not essential to offer this facility - yet. But once electronic trading becomes established, there will be a range of payment mechanisms, just as there is in conventional commerce, ranging from credit cards and "electronic cash" to direct fund transfers. If your systems cannot be adapted to accept these, you will be in serious trouble. The infrastructure for taking payments must be robust and secure.

FULFILMENT

Once you have sold something online, how do you deliver it? How will you provide consultancy, support, servicing or repairs to someone in another county or country? It is no coincidence that many of the successful businesses on the Web are either selling something which is easy to post, such as books, or already have a direct channel to their customers.

"Soft" goods such as services, information and software can pose even more of a challenge. You may need to introduce access controls, charging or "metering" at your Web site.

CAVEAT VENDOR

Electronic trading lets you establish business relationships with people you may never have heard of, let alone met, so the watchword online is "seller beware". Can you be sure that an order for red noses from "S Claus, 1 North Pole" is genuine? If it is, can you trust Mr Claus on a cash-on-delivery basis? If the noses don't fit, how can he return them and when will you pay the refund? And, if you are Mr Claus and you are required to pay up-front, how do you know that the supplier will despatch the goods?

THINK SMALL

Good e-commerce is like a sniper, not a blunderbuss. The buzzword is micro-marketing. Customer data is going to be the prime asset. You will need to be able to market your products to an audience of one.

BE ATTRACTIVE AND USEFUL

Identify what your customers need and what they can cope with, especially on the Internet. A Web site which is badly laid out or does not contain the right information will deter people.

Offering collateral information entices people to visit and will get you into more search engines. But beware of creating a site which does not reflect your business and brand image. It is no good producing a gimmicky site if your customers expect you to be reliable and sober.

ACCESS AND CHOICE

Make sure your trading partners can access whatever you are trying to provide. Some users may have test-only access from mainframe computers - and it is no good setting up a Web site for mobile executives if it is too complex to be accessed from a mobile phone or pocket organiser.

The trading medium itself may also have to be tailored to its users. Conventional EDI (electronic data interchange) is expensive to set up, so an Internet-based alternative may be more suitable for smaller businesses.

INTEGRATION AND STANDARDS

No new computer system should be installed without giving thought to e-commerce integration. Unless you can integrate EDI, e-mail, electronic forms or other e-commerce media into your existing computer systems, you will never be efficient in processing orders or arranging delivery. Additionally, you may have to integrate with your customers, as large companies increasingly demand their suppliers trade electronically, either by EDI or on the Internet, or expect to be able to check stock levels or order status on their suppliers' systems.

"Interoperability" requires standards. These include TCP/IP, on which the Internet and intranets are based; CORBA/IIOP for exchanging transactions; and Java for highly portable program code.

ROOM TO GROW

Scalability is crucial. Rates of growth in e-commerce are unpredictable and the ability to cope with sudden rapid growth will be critical. If trade volumes grow and potential customers become frustrated through insufficient network capacity and processing power, your site will literally become a victim of its own success.

DON'T DELAY

If you wait for the Internet to become "mature", you may miss the boat. The successful e-commerce businesses of tomorrow are laying the foundations today. Even if your e-commerce pilots have not gone well, it is too early to cut your losses and get out - nearly everyone has made a loss so far.

As the Net becomes the normal way of doing business, anyone who cannot connect to it will increasingly become an outsider.