Wheel of e-commerce, still turning after 8 years
Back in the late nineties I got the opportunity to work for the dutch retailer Kijkshop. Early september the message came that within six to eight weeks a full working e-commerce platform should be up and running. Today in 2007 many people might think, piece of cake, but back in those days the wheel of e-commerce still had to be invented. The software needed to run a shop, manage your assortment, allow people to put products into a basket, make online payment work without fraud and have backoffice employees pick the right products and send them to the proper address was still a bit buggy and immature.
With the marketing manager and the IT manager in the lead the logistics manager and a group of buying managers , the inhouse laywer, the human resource manager were all eager to jump into this new arena and claim their part of the game they immediately lost focus. Everybody was tumbling over eachother as this e-commerce playground was new, promising and had to be conquered as e/commerce managers did not yet exist.
With no practical tools available yet, I had to come with an instrument to untangel the group of people I had to work with these old school professionals, best in their breed but unknown to the online selling business. Their knowledge and experience had to be taken into account. How could I make use of their skills, knowledge and experience. I red the internet, those days that was possible, and all the theoretical models and methods I had run into working in the advertising and IT business. having my own private ´brown paper session´ at home models and methods started blending with projections of online commerce and I reinvented the wheel. The wheel-of-e.commerce was born in the weekend and tested the first monday as only six weeks were left to get this e-commerce venture live and clicking.
It turned out that the wheel-of-e.commerce was a great assesment tool. Over the years I used it dozens of times and each and every time within an hour it gave managers insight in their online operations. The model made it clear where to focus and what to do.
Now finally after all these years the writing has seriously started and 2008 will be a magical year as the model will be made available in a book. Until the book is finished the only way to find out how the wheel-of-e.commerce can work for your company or organisation you will have to contact me.
mailto: r.edwards@hollandmediamarketing.nl
