Building a successful, stable e-comm team

One of the biggest mistakes companies make with their e-commerce efforts is thinking that IS can operate in a vacuum.

It's not unusual for a company to tell its network manager to develop an e-commerce strategy for the company's lynchpin product. The network manager often proceeds without input from any of the business units involved with the product, and yet everyone is stunned when the e-commerce initiative fails.

Rich Giltner, a network analyst for a major fulfillment house, says he's seen this scenario played out many times. And each time, he's been surprised by the narrowness of a company's e-commerce vision.

Giltner's company approaches e-commerce projects differently. They draft members of various departments to form an e-commerce team.

Giltner says there's a right way and a wrong way to construct these teams. The wrong way would be to stock it half with marketing people and half with technical people. The two groups will develop an e-commerce strategy that is so heavily based on demographics that the elegance of the e-commerce mission will be lost. These two groups by themselves also lack the insight that other members of the product team could bring to the project. Instead, Giltner says, a successful e-commerce team should include members from four sectors: technical, sales/marketing, business development and graphic design.

Technical members should include a mix of LAN overseers, WAN managers and Webmasters. Having all three involved will guarantee that all technology issues that arise can be solved quickly. Doubts about technology can be hammered out and cross-system implementations discussed.

The sales/marketing team members are important because they provide direction for content and customer care.

The business development members are the keys to a successful e-commerce venture. In with this group will be representatives from budgeting, accounting, supply chain, fulfillment and purchasing. Anyone that helps to usher the product from order to delivery should be part of the team. The rationale behind this is that eventually those systems are going to have to be integrated into the process, and you'll need someone who knows how the legacy systems work.

Finally, it's imperative that members of the graphics team are involved, even if you are doing a business-to-business e-commerce project. As important as it is for consumers to easily find what they are looking for and buy it, it's just as important for business partners to have the same experience interacting with your systems. Graphic designers can make the difference between an efficient process and one muddled with tangential clicks.

Sitting at the helm of this e-commerce team is a project manager. That person can be from any of the disciplines, as long as they are familiar with the product cycle. They must be able to take feedback from all the departments and implement it into the e-commerce design.

So now you've got your team ... what do you do with it? Check out next week's newsletter for my answer.

Sandra Gittlen is managing editor of Network World Fusion. Previously, she was senior reporter covering Internet research and standards. She can be reached at sgittlen@nww.com.

Check out Network World Fusion's e-commerce resources

Drum this into your head
Network World, 08/09/99

Psychological profiles
Network World, 05/17/99

Assuming too much in e-commerce
Network World, 05/03/99

Archive of Network World on E-Commerce in the Enterprise newsletters