The write-up aims to
identify the problem of developing a system that will lead to affordable
eccomerce development. Interestingly, it gives an insight into an old problem
by involving various stakeholders who are part of the bigger picture but often
neglected.
Ecommerce, a concept that has turned
many heads in the past decade, continues to be a buzzword in the world of the
internet. Not only is it contributing heavily to generate new forms of values
and business, but is also driving the internet traffic to a large extent. In
fact, ecommerce websites give tough competition to the hottest social
networking websites in terms of traffic.
According to experts, ecommerce has
changed the landscape of retail and wholesale business forever and is here to
stay for a longer period of time than its critics imagine. Understandably, the
valuations of ecommerce start-ups are soaring and their founders are enjoying
pretty busy days in their offices, thanks to the rush of cash from angel
investors and venture capitalists.
But before a budding entrepreneur
becomes a big shot, he and his venture has to go through lean days where cash
is a scarce commodity, budgets are tight and lots of things needed to run the
venture. Simply speaking, he cannot afford to hire experts when it comes to the
first step – development of an ecommerce website. It is this inability of
entrepreneurs to go after big names in the initial phase that must be grabbed
as an opportunity by small IT firms and web development companies, especially
by those who wants to forge a long term relationship with their clients.
But this might seem to be a paradox
that how can small web development companies maintain decent profit margin and
still quote a fee that an entrepreneur of an ecommerce venture can afford,
given that the said small company does not have the scale to make up for the
bottom line even if it shows some mercy on a cash -strapped ecommerce venture?
The answer, although not obvious, can be cooked up if one analyzes the problem
from the point of view of operations management.
The objective of maintaining profit
margin even at a reduced fee can be achieved by small web development companies
if they streamline the chain of processes involved with affordable ecommerce development. To be able to do this, the best
way is to adopt a modular approach and break down the entire development
process into easily manageable, small chunks, rather than trying to tackle the
entire problem at once.
By modular approach, we shall mean
the small, specific areas that requires a specific skill set and can be linked
later on with other modules. How can this approach be implemented in practice?
There is no one concrete answer to this question. However, one can have an idea
by the following example: Break the project into parts like design of
structure, developing or migrating databases, integration of shopping carts and
gateways, development of cookies, integration and deployment of the mailing
system for circulating promotional; offers to subscribers, etc.
Each module should be handled and
executed by the resource who can deliver it in the least possible time, but in
an error-free manner. Thus, an important part of this approach is
identification of strengths of each team member and assigning one or more
modules to him accordingly. The team leader has to perform the job of
coordination between different m,embers working in silos or concentrating only
on their part of the project.
There is also another advantage of
this approach – the team leader can easily identify who is lagging behind,
beside being able to spot and isolate erroneous portions easily. Such an
approach will reduce the overall turn-around time for any project and a web
development company will be able to take up and deliver more projects in less
time. Thus, the increase in scale will apparently lead to lowering of rates,
which in turn, will result in affordableeccomerce development.
