Who is Involved?
E-commerce impacts upon almost every function within a business. Externally, a variety of suppliers will also need to be involved within an e-commerce project.
The range of specialist skills required will be dependent upon the scale and complexity of the proposed e-commerce system. However, these skills are likely to include experience of:
- servers - Microsoft, Sun, Linux etc
- firewalls and security
- graphic design and production
- HTML and XML coding
- programming languages
- database technologies
The interested parties within a business include:
- board-level management
- purchasing
- inventory management
- manufacturing
- service provision
- direct sales
- sales channel management
- fulfilment
- post-sales support
- marketing and PR
- accounting
- training
- legal
External parties with a potential involvement in an e-commerce project include:
- existing hardware and software suppliers
- specialist internet hardware and software suppliers
- programmers, web designers and consultants used on an "as required" basis
- internet service providers
- domain name registrar
- telecommunication providers
- major suppliers
- major customers
- advertising/marketing design agencies
- specialist business media
- accountants/auditors
- solicitors
- training companies