Most e-commerce failures can be attributed to a breakdown of the interface between the back- and front-ends of an online enterprise - and the greatest success stories are those which have successfully integrated these two components.
"The lesson is this: a company`s internal processes need to be right before it can be e-enabled," says Richard Firth, chairman and CEO of software development and outsource house MIP Holdings.
"E-commerce changes the way a business is run, with clients no longer phoning in or physically entering a shop, but interacting with a company in electronic format," Firth says. This in turn means an increasing blurring between e-commerce and other business processes.
"Simple Internet transactions such as order placing, inquiries, statements and payments are but one aspect of the growing complexity of the medium," continues Firth. Any transactions requiring more than simple inputs are where the real crunch comes.
"In any applications where changes or revisions to a database are made, for example, or anywhere where there is a need for interactivity, the back-end systems have to be in order," says Firth.
This raises the issue of customer relationship management (CRM) suites: many companies have spent huge amounts on building CRM applications, but have failed to introduce an online processing capability.
"Too often the CRM focus is simply on being able to answer calls within a certain number of rings," says Firth. "However, being able to provide a complete picture of a client`s behaviour and record, linked into back-end record systems and predicted behaviour requires a far higher degree of sophisticated architectural integration than merely being able to answer a call quickly."
Web-based transactions will often require a company to have three, four or five different systems which have to be integrated, often running on different platforms.
"For example, CRM systems, financial applications and debtor/creditor/client databases all have to be integrated into a unified information flow," says Firth.
"Getting that internal flow between the platforms is one of the biggest hurdles of integrating back- and front-end systems - but it is a task which has to be done to maximise the chances of e-commerce success."
Research has shown there are two factors which influence an online customer: how the front-end looks and how the back-end delivers.
"This means it is equally important to have a visually appealing front-end, but also allow ease of entry into the more traditional back-end office systems employed by the company. If orders are processed smoothly, invoices issued timeously, and customer records can be used so as to present real-time offers and up-selling, then an e-commerce venture will have all the elements necessary for success," concludes Firth.
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