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The challenges of  sell-  side e-commerce implementation

A useful framework for reviewing an organisation’s capabilities to manage digital  business‑ 

 related transformation is shown in Table  10.1. This 7S framework was developed by 

McKinsey consultants in the 1970s and summarised by Waterman et al. (1980). It can be 

readily applied to businesses of all sectors and sizes.

Table 10.1 summarises some of the main issues which need management, but what are the 

main challenges in implementing strategy? E‑consultancy (2005) surveyed UK e‑commerce 

managers to assess their views on the main challenges of managing e‑commerce within an 

organisation. In the context of the 7Ss, we can summarise the main challenges as follows:

● 

Strategy – Limited capabilities to integrate Internet strategy into core marketing and busi‑

ness strategy as discussed in Chapter 5 is indicated by frustration on gaining appropriate 

budgets.

● 

Structure – Structural and process issues are indicated by the challenges of gaining 

resource and buy‑in from traditional marketing and IT functions.

● 

Skills and staff – These issues were indicated by difficulties in finding specialist staff or 

agencies.

Research for E‑consultancy that I completed in 2005 and updated in 2008 highlighted 

some of the main challenges of implementing e‑commerce. My initial sample for interviews 

was e‑commerce managers for transactional sites – for example, mobile phones (Orange, 

The Carphone Warehouse), travel (Tui and MyTravel), financial services (Lloyds TSB and 

Bradford and Bingley) and direct marketers such as BCA.

Activity 10.1

Managing change at a B2C company