In personal leadership it is common to talk about building on your strengths. By building on your strengths, you improve forward, and reach a new level, creating new possibilities. If you work on your weaknesses, improve what isn’t working that well, you can only improve to some level, but will have a hard time getting any further and creating new possibilities. It works in the same way with e-commerce. The trigger factor for changes are often the things that aren’t working that well – what brakes. The things that are really competitive forward is what makes you unique and make it possible to develop in long term – what creates.
What Brakes
What brakes is usually well-known by both the organization and customers. If you ask a customer: “How do you think the company ACME’s e-commerce work?” you will often get a spontaneous and honest answer. I myself was recently disappointed with a larger sport company’s collect at store handling. It sounded good and was appealing in the shop, but the experience was very slow in comparison with other e-retailers. It is a factor that makes me select another option the next time, or another company. That is definitely something that brakes. The reason can be how picking for the e-commerce works, and how the logistics work between central warehouse and store. It can be the internal organization, or how well the internal system interact. Brakes affect the sales, leaving the customer selecting other options. Often, the reasons for brakes can be hard to adjust, for example an old system that needs to be replaced, just not right now. Brakes are mainly about fixing or finding ways around problems that can’t be fully solved right now.
Make an analysis. Bring it all up on the table. By being aware of the brakes, you increase your internal awareness, and know the stakes. Describe the problems, reasons, what stops them from being solved, and the effects the problem have today, for the customers, and internally. Maybe several problems have the same reason that will be a prioritized are to solve.
Technically the work with brakes should rather be a creating work finding out in advance strategies to eliminate brakes rather than fixing problems that arise. If we scale up the system to double the number of orders, will it still work? If we want to interact a PIM system to make the product management more efficient, can we easily do it? Build your solution by well-thought technologies that won’t be bottlenecks in the future. Remove the brakes to focus on creating, and work preventing to eliminate brakes. Set a goal to dislocate focus over time to creating measures. If you build your integration with NServiceBus as a foundation you might not see the large effect before you integrate a new system that shares the same messages. You have the possibility for something that creates.
What Creates
The factors that creates are things that makes it possible to go forward. It is the possibility to have more customers, more satisfied customers, more sales, or the possibility to build better solutions forward. It creates something that is unique to your business, and gives the extra push that no or little of your competitors have. It is the things that makes the customers remember your store in the digital noise. Think technology, functionality, content, meeting and address. Maybe the thing that is missing is that you clearly states who you are and why you are number one. It can make the difference and is easy to adjust.¨
While the reasons to brakes often are well-known, the way forward and the core issues can sometimes be vague for the things that creates, and the effects don’t need to be necessary. You might see a future possibility that can be a success, but it isn’t certain today that the investment will pay off. You might have a goal to sell more and have more satisfied customers, but the road isn’t clear. Your strategy and your business goals forward will set the stakes.
Improving your e-commerce solution is a continuous work since the technology and the customer’s behavior is rapidly changing. Not long ago it was unthinkable that a craftsman would have a laptop, now an iPad is a common working tool. An important quality in the technical solution is that the technology should be adjustable. You will need to make new integrations, develop smart functionality, scale up the systems, and adjust to new technology. E-commerce is constantly ongoing work and that is part of the charm. The earth keep spinning.