How to implement e-business solutions successfullyWritten by Nowshade Kabir
Getting your business processes online is not an easy job! According to Gartner Group, a renowned research firm, a full 75 percent of all e-business projects fail due to poor planning and unrealistic expectations of new technology. The productivity gains and cost savings promised by e-business solutions are often lost not because of technology itself but because of improper management of their implementation. In most of cases, when a massive e-business solution installation goes wrong, management of business is to blame. Failure to understand scale of project, oversimplification of project, inappropriate expectations and lack of resource commitment are few of mistakes made by management that debilitate implementation and use of systems.Pitfalls of E-business solutions installation process A large distribution company has decided to use a new online supply chain management solution. The people – those who were supposed to use system – were quite skeptic about ability of system, as they did not have enough knowledge and had very little or no training in using a similar system. As a result, it took over a year for company to bring solution to its full operation. Productivity suffered severely. The final implementation cost came out to be several times more than initial budget. A large number of companies are reporting to face similar difficulties with implementation of their e-business solutions. The problems that occur while a company tries to implement e-business solutions, most likely, include: Senior managers do not spend enough time and efforts to learn and understand solutions. As a result, they have no idea how their workers will adapt to this new solution; and fail to set forth quantifiable objectives for them in terms of efficiency and productivity. The end users do not receive required training. As a result, treat new solution as an added burden rather than a tool to increase efficiency and productivity. In many cases, IT infrastructure is not up-to-date enough and lacks power to support new solution. Due to inadequate understanding by management of e-business solutions that they plan to adopt, often, time and money allocated to project are far less than required. Often advanced Internet based e-business solutions require to be integrated with portion of old systems that company is presently using, which in turn, sometimes generates software and system incompatibility. How to avoid pitfalls E-business solutions are sophisticated systems that encompass significant areas of company and its relationship with customers. That’s why implementation of these projects should be carried out according to detailed plans. Preparation Create a well developed scope. In creating scope involve all end-users of solution, not only technical and business model experts. Get answers to questions like:
| | Are You Losing Sales Because Of Your Email Link?Written by Steve Shaw
Copyright © 2004 Steve ShawI don't know about you, but I get dozens of emails daily with completely blank subject lines. The vast majority contain viruses or spam messages, and due to an overloaded inbox and impracticality of going through each message individually, I tend to delete these suspects automatically en masse, in same way that I delete other messages containing subject lines that scream spam. This practice has in past cost me sales as occasionally I missed important messages from prospects. If a prospect was taking time to email me, they were likely to be very interested in purchasing software - last thing I wanted to do was miss their message when it arrived. Not only did I miss a possible initial sale, it also left them with a bad impression and they would be likely to steer clear of my products in future. Also, existing customers would sometimes send me emails with a blank subject line requesting support - consequent lack of response at my end because of blank subject line could lead to requests for refunds that could have been avoided had I seen their email and responded in my usual way. This also led to loss of potential future sales of other products that they might have otherwise been interested in. All in all, important missed emails like this can be very costly. I have therefore since implemented a very simple strategy on my web site to reduce this risk, and help to ensure that these important messages reach me and actually get opened and responded to in my usual quick way. It involves a simple adjustment of HTML that takes just seconds.
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