eCommerce – more specifically, eBusiness – has evolved into a highly integrated ecosystem that extends beyond the traditional shopping cart and exclusivity to a single on-line channel. Companies are now inextricably linked to consumers, suppliers and vendors across various channels, and the systems required to manage these interactions have grown more complex.
The next-generation eCommerce platform must factor in business processes and supporting systems including business intelligence, master data management and customer relationship management to ensure compatibility and synergy.
In this presentation, we explore some of these challenges and provide insight on how to approach them from a business and technology perspective.
- Business process re-engineering to support the next-generation eCommerce platform
- A holistic approach to integrating eCommerce into your business
- To de-couple or not to de-couple from your enterprise applications
- Leveraging the core capabilities of your enterprise applications while still taking advantage of your overlapping eCommerce platform features
Presenter Sameer Peera is Principal of Perficient’s national Commerce practice.
2. About Perficient
Watch this webinar
replay at
Perficient.com/Webinars
Perficient is a leading information technology consulting firm serving
clients throughout North America.
We help clients implement business-driven technology solutions that
integrate business processes, improve worker productivity, increase
customer loyalty and create a more agile enterprise to better respond
to new business opportunities.
3. PRFT Profile
Founded in 1997
Public, NASDAQ: PRFT
2009 Revenue of $188 million
16 major market locations throughout North America
— Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dallas, Denver,
Detroit, Fairfax, Houston, Indianapolis, Minneapolis, New
Orleans, Philadelphia, San Jose, St. Louis and Toronto
1,300+ colleagues
Dedicated solution practices
~450 enterprise clients (2009) and 85% repeat business
rate
Alliance partnerships with major technology vendors
Multiple vendor/industry technology and growth awards
4. Our Solutions Expertise & Services
Business-Driven Solutions Perficient Services
• Enterprise Portals End-to-End Solution Delivery
• SOA and Business Process IT Strategic Consulting
Management IT Architecture Planning
• Business Intelligence Business Process & Workflow
• User-Centered Custom Applications Consulting
• CRM Solutions Usability and UI Consulting
• Enterprise Performance Management Custom Application Development
• Customer Self-Service Offshore Development
• eCommerce & Product Information Package Selection, Implementation
Management and Integration
• Enterprise Content Management Architecture & Application Migrations
• Industry-Specific Solutions Education
• Mobile Technology
• Security Assessments
Perficient brings deep solutions expertise and offers
a complete set of flexible services to help clients
implement business-driven IT solutions 4
5. eCommerce System Context
Tracking #
Fedex
‘Traditional’ eCommerce
CSR Tax
Payment Payment
Fulfillment Order
WMS Integration
Cancel Processor
Data
Settlement
Order
Fulfillment Response Transaction engine / shopping
Warehouse
Store Master
cart solution
Order
Transactions Management
Transactions
System
Sales Audit
Order Details
Order Status /
Inventory
Authorization
Updates
Tax Calculation
Data Feed Point-to-point integration
Order Confirm
Store Locator
Transactions
MQ
Reporting
Know-where
Inventory & Pricing
Mass Mail
System
Store Results
Investor
Order & Order Status
Store Fill Orders
Relations
POS
About Us
Demand Data
Shipping & Tax
GC
Weekly
Customer File
Store Fill Orders
Event Based Mail Gift Card Redemption Processor
Customer Data
3rd Party
eCommerce
Customer
Database
Product File
Payments, etc.
External / 3rd Party Integration
Edge Cache
Inventory
Marketing & Campaigns
Update
Content
Analytics
Inventory
Merchandising
Management
CDN Search
Results
Reporting
OMS / WMS
Enhanced
Visualization Web Analytics
Search
Provider
Merchandising, etc.
7. Solution Domains
Product Master Data Application Collaborative Identity/Access
Requirements Category eCommerce Configurator ECM Management Aggregation Workspace Management CRM
Architecture x x x x x
Admin/Technical Operational Tooling x x
Performance and Scalability x x x x
Business Models x x x x x x
Business Management Tooling x x x x x
Customer Service x x
Data x x x x
Development and Testing x x x
eCommerce Capabilities x x x x
Marketing x x x x x x
Non-Functional Requirements x x x
Reporting & Analytics x x
Systems Integration x x x x x x x
Holistic View of eBusiness
Requirements intersect multiple domains
Platform assessment for a Domain based on core capabilities and requirements alignment
Technical and business processes are evaluated across functional areas (not through a confined
domain view)
8. Designing a Holistic Solution
• Core System Capabilities
• Identify and understand core capabilities, strengths, and weaknesses of each platform
• Ex. eCommerce provides Analytics capabilities
• What are my business requirements for analytics?
• Are they satisfied by the out-of-box capability? What are the limitations?
• Perform a capabilities gap assessment against requirements
• Leverage out-of-box capabilities
• Have you explored alternate out-of-box approaches to achieve the same result?
• Reduce customization will make future migrations a lot simpler
• Identify synergies across platforms
• Can you streamline data flow and consolidate data into a single interface?
• Ex. Analytics – Can coremetrics provide an aggregate view of analytics across your
entire site (Import data from other systems – Search, 3rd Party Marketing, etc.)
• Is there a hybrid approach that would better align with business and technical requirements?
9. Designing a Holistic Solution
• Solution Domain: Master Data Management
• Which is the real system of record?
• Will data be manipulated across multiple systems?
• Is synchronization across systems required? Unidirectional / bi-directional?
• Solution Domain: Content Management
• Define content!
• Are you looking for Web Content Management, Enterprise Content Management, or both?
• How can I leverage Marketing and Promotion content in eCommerce while managing my core
product content and merchandising in a WCM solution?
• Identify and Analyze Solution Domains
• Search • BPM • Others
• Business Intelligence • BRMS
• Governance • Identity / Access Management
• MDM • Application Aggregation
14. Holistic Solution - People
Jake Parker the Illustrator of the Map of Dr. Suess’ Whoville
said it best when he explains the process for creating this
drawing!
Agent 44 An Art Blog by Jake Parker Jan. 27
19. Follow Perficient Online
Perficient.com/SocialMedia
Daily unique content about content
management, user experience, portals and
other enterprise information technology
solutions across a variety of industries.
Twitter.com/Perficient Facebook.com/Perficient
19
20. Next Month
From sense and respond…to predict and act!
Predictive Analytics: The Next Wave in Business Intelligence
Webinar Date: Thursday, October 28, 12:00-1:00 PM CT
• Do you want to capture information about customers, prospects, employees and more?
• Are you able to predict behavior, preferences and future performance?
• Can you act in real-time or ahead of a potential issue?
Making crucial business decisions based on intuition and gut feeling informed by personal experience
is no longer sufficient. Successful businesses are moving away from this ‘sense and respond’ decision-
making approach to Predictive Analytics that allow you to predict potential outcomes and change
course ahead of potential issues.
Join us as we discuss how Predictive Analytics enables decision makers to predict future events and
proactively act on that insight to drive better business outcomes and deliver the insight needed to
answer key business questions.
20