In this four-part series of blogs, my objective is to explain the roadblocks currently preventing small businesses from developing sustainable traffic for conducting e-commerce. In this first post in the series, I will explain the importance of a world-class website as the foundation for a small business transformation.
At some stage in the life of an enterprise, whether it's big or small, and whether or not it's on the buy or the sell side, there's going to be a need for the owner to deal with the subject of mergers and acquisitions.
Accumulation of data has become an unavoidable component of modern business. Extraction and intelligent interpretation of data are key business differentiators. Still, without a database correctly structured and developed to contain the data, it's impossible to extract the total value from the information accumulated.
In many instances, big business no longer serves the best interests of its customers. However, real advantages built up over the years through leveraging historical value propositions, lower costs, and higher efficiency gave big business time to build distribution barriers that have made it difficult for small businesses to win back market share despite reduced customer satisfaction.
Old-school marketing may have been expensive, and the returns on investment were vague, but the concept was simple for everyone to understand. Create an advertisement, publish it, and hope someone engages. However, times have changed, and the marketing of a small business's value proposition to its target customers must also change.
In some form or other, almost every aspect of our daily lives and the products and services we use is transitioning rapidly from "analog" to "digital." The business environment and challenges we face to be successful are therefore also constantly and quickly changing.
Without a road map, it's nearly impossible to get from point A to point B. The same is true for small business planning and strategy. A business plan is vital for any business, whether it requires a transformation or not. Goals need to be set both for revenue and expenses.
Unless enterprises have enabled their customers to conduct business online within a fully integrated digital platform, they are operating less efficiently than e-commerce-enabled competitors and ignoring massive signals that this is how customers want to conduct business.
Operations management is "the administration of business practices to create the highest level of efficiency possible within an organization to convert materials and labor into goods and services as efficiently as possible and maximize the profit of an organization."
Making the decision (if there's an option) whether or not an enterprise invests in carrying its inventory brings significant implications for the enterprise's cost structure and working capital requirements. If a business has to or chooses to, support moving its stock, then, along with that decision comes complexity and risk, as well as the need to allocate capital to pay for the list.
