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Part 3  Implementation

Questions

1 

By referring to the case study, Amazon’s web-

site for your country and your experience of 

Amazon offline communications, evaluate how 

well Amazon communicates its core proposition 

and promotional offers.

2 

Using the case study, characterise Amazon’s 

approach to marketing communications.

3 

Explain what distinguishes Amazon in its uses of 

technology for competitive advantage.

4 

How does the Amazon ‘culture of metrics’ dif-

fer from that in other organisations from your 

experience?

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Chapter 12  Digital business service implementation and optimisation

Summary

1 

Implementation is an iterative process of managing changes involving analysis, 

design, testing and review as part of an evolutionary prototyping process.

2 

Maintenance is a continuous process of monitoring, assessing required changes 

and then implanting them using evolutionary prototyping.

3 

Simple web pages are developed in static HTML. Most digital business systems 

require dynamic pages that are implemented using  client-   and  server-  side script-

ing, of which the most popular are JavaScript and ASP.

4 

Testing has two main objectives: first, to check for  non-  conformance with the busi-

ness and user requirements and, second, to identify bugs or errors. There are many 

specialised techniques to test either part of the system (component testing) or all of 

the system (system testing).

5 

Changeover has to be managed to include elements of piloting, phased implemen-

tation, immediate cutover and parallel running.

6 

Content management requires a clearly defined update process and responsibili-

ties according to different types of changes required.

7 

Measurement also requires process and responsibilities and also a measurement 

framework. A suggested framework for  sell-  side e-commerce assesses channel 

promotion, channel behaviour, channel satisfaction, channel outcomes and chan-

nel profitability. Selection of appropriate web analytics tools is important to assess 

the effectiveness of e-commerce.

Exercises