CIO — When Keith Schamis, general manager of NAPAonline.com in Atlanta, the online division of the National Automotive Parts Association (NAPA), realized that the company needed to launch an e-commerce initiative in order to stay competitive, he was concerned. "We had such a large amount of data—more than 140,000 SKUs—and it wasn’t structured to be displayed and handled in this manner," he says. "But we knew we had to get in the e-commerce game."
Schamis was not alone in his dilemma. As consumers increasingly accept e-commerce, companies are finding that they have to jump in quickly or risk falling behind. "Regardless of the strategy or purpose, the benefits to having a website continue to demonstrate that the digital age makes businesses stronger," says Chris Anne Wheeler, vice president of information services for ActivMedia Research, a Peterborough, N.H.-based e-commerce and online market research company.
But because most businesses don’t have the expertise or personnel necessary to build top-notch e-commerce systems in-house, more and more of them are turning to vendors to handle their e-commerce functions from end-to-end. IT vendors, in response, have launched multiple new e-commerce offerings in hopes of capturing a piece of this potentially huge market.
But end-to-end e-commerce systems—while appealing in theory—can be complicated and difficult to deploy.
In March, Cambridge, Mass.-based Giga Information Group released a report, "Who’s Overpromising, Who’s Underdelivering in End-to-End Internet E-Commerce Solutions." The report asserts that e-commerce has become so broad and so fundamental to business that claims of complete e-commerce solutions are simply not credible. Andrew Bartels, author of the report and vice president and research leader for e-business applications and strategies at Giga, notes, "When you look closely at vendors who claim to have a broad offering and even have the products that meet each criteria of e-commerce, you find that many of those pieces are second- or third-rate."
But the pressure to deploy e-commerce initiatives continues to increase, and business owners are being forced to make tough decisions. "It often comes down to a choice between a vendor that does a little bit of everything but doesn’t have the depth versus a vendor who has depth in one area but is weak in several others," says Gene Alvarez, an analyst with Meta Group based in Stamford, Conn.
Mastering Processes
Though no two company offerings are exactly alike, most include tools for creating a Web presence equipped for secure payment processing, managing the supply chain and handling digital certificates, customer relationships, shipping, security and support. To further obscure the process, electronic storefronts must integrate with a company’s existing back-end and legacy systems as well as corporate data. The systems often require staff training and off-site hosting as well.
