Creating an e-business summary

As we have discovered, an e-business truly does touch every department within a company. And a truly integrated e-business has optimized both its human and technology resources.

From forming a strategic business plan that incorporates traditional business practices with e-business solutions, to conducting a risk analysis and disaster recovery plan, ABC has many steps to take before it can be tagged a successful e-business. It must first develop a marketing strategy and ask itself fundamental questions regarding its operational success factors.

ABC must also create a financial plan that looks at past performance as well as future trends. E-business involves reducing operational costs as well as increasing sales. Finally, ABC must work to make its e-business solution work for the customer. The customer must ultimately benefit from the efficiencies that ABC and its business partners will gain from a well-strategized and implemented e-business campaign.

Copyright | emarketingprofs | All Rights Reserved

Critical Steps for Success

There is a theory when it comes to implementing a successful project and that theory maintains that there are four (4) critical areas of any project:

• Time Frame
• Quality
• Scope and
• Budget

The first step that ABC should take is to move towards standardizing its procedures in order to increase efficiencies and decrease costs and the likelihood for errors. Another major step in the process is for ABC to establish a detailed disaster recovery plan. If a majority of its customers are self-servicing themselves, and if new customers are ordering or looking for the first time, the site must be up and functional all of the time. A disaster action plan and team should be put into place in order to assure that ABC’s site remains online and functional 99% of the time.

Further, ABC should market itself on horizontally and vertically integrated marketplaces. Lastly, the sales and customer service force should be trained on the implications of the website. They should understand how to use the site and be aware that any time-savings that the site affords them should be used to gain new leads and sales and to grow sales among the current customer list. In these ways, ABC’s strategic plan can have a direct impact on business and customer relationships. After this has been accomplished, the focus should turn to developing a marketing strategy that incorporates ABC’s goals.

For ABC to create a successful e-business marketing strategy, it must answer some fundamental questions regarding its business practices, external obstacles and long-term strategic vision. Among the most intrinsic questions for ABC to answer are its marketing strategy, internal realties, effective measurement of benchmarks and its overall branding and positioning strategy. Each one of these questions can be broken down into more detailed and insightful questions for ABC to answer.

In our next discussion, we will turn to the topic of marketing strategy.

Copyright | emarketingprofs | All Rights Reserved