Change management Using Web 2.0 tools to support

564 Part 3 Implementation 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. E-consultancy research I completed in 2005 highlighted some of the main challenges of implementing e-commerce. My initial sample for interviews were 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. One of the aims of the research was to gain a picture of the organizational processes and activities that need to be managed as part of sell-side e-commerce and the organizational structures that had been created to manage this. Figure 10.2 gives an indication of the number of operational e-CRM processes that need to be managed across the three core e-CRM areas acquisition, conversion, retention which we reviewed in Chapter 9. It also shows the management activities needed to support these. Some large organizations in the study had between 10 and 50 specialist staff managing these activities. For smaller com- panies, there is also the challenge that only 1 or 2 people are responsible for these activities, so they will need to work smart and outsource many of the activities As part of the research, respondents were asked what their main challenges were and these highlighted the issues of gaining sufficient resources for Internet marketing. Their key challenges included: Gaining buy-in and budget consistent with audience media consumption and value generated Conflicts of ownership and tensions between a digital marketing team, traditional marketing, IT, and finance and senior management Coordination with different channels in conjunction with teams managing marketing programmes elsewhere in the business Managing and integrating customer information about characteristics and behaviours collected online Achieving a unified reporting and performance improvement process throughout the busi- ness including reporting, analysis and actioning suggested changes Structuring the specialist digital team and integrating into the organization by changing responsibilities elsewhere in the organization Insourcing vs outsourcing online marketing tactics, i.e. search, affiliate, e-mail marketing, PR Staff recruitment and retention since there is a shortage of e-marketing skills given the rapid growth in demand for these skills, which gives great opportunities for everyone reading this book After initial qualitative interviews, identifying the type of challenges faced by an e-commerce manager, a wider survey identified how common these problems were. The responses of e-commerce managers are summarized in Figure 10.3. The research showed that managing the interfaces between the e-commerce team and other parts of the organization was a major challenge for many organizations. Managing these interfaces is a key role of the head of e-commerce and managers within their team. Every respondent articulated the need for education of colleagues in the organization about the benefits of e-commerce and the changes in processes required to achieve these benefits. This need for education was mentioned with respect to three main parts of the organization: 1 Senior management. Managing the senior management team interface was mainly an issue for less-evolved adopters of e-commerce. Leading adopters mentioned it had been a problem, but they now felt they had achieved understanding of the strategic importance of online channels and this was matched by financial resources and sufficient input into planning to achieve alignment between business objectives and e-commerce initiatives. 2 Marketing, different brands, businesses or countries. Similarly, this was more of an issue for the less-evolved organizations. Others had created processes for collaboration between e-commerce and marketing teams and defined responsibilities for e-commerce within these marketing teams. 3 Information technology. This interface was mentioned as a challenge by nearly every respondent – there was a belief that insufficient resource for applications development was limiting the potential of e-commerce to deliver value to customers and the organization. Where this was less of an issue, companies had either incorporated some development function within the e-commerce function, or had outsourced parts of development. 565 Figure 10.2 Digital marketing activities that require management as sell-side e-commerce Source: Econsultancy 2005 Search engine optimisation Acquisition Pay per click search Partnerships affiliates Online ads sponsorship E-mail marketing Online PR Offline campaigns Proposition development Conversion Proposition Development Content creation Content management Merchandising Site usability and accessibility Design and development Customer service Proposition development Retention and growth Outbound communications E-mail marketing Customer management Touch strategy definition Loyalty programmes Personalisation Performance improvement including Management Information, web analytics and customer analysis Supporting processes Design guidlines and operating procedures Technical infrastructure including service level management Operating pr ocesses Creating the vision. Assesing technological innovation. Strategy and Planning Market analysis and competitor benchmarking Financial analysis and modelling Defining the multichannel customer experience. Managing customer information Annual planning and budgeting IT Project and campaign planning and management Interfacing with senior management Managing relationships Interfacing with marketing and corporate communications Interfacing with IT Staff development, education and retention Managing external relationships. Vendor selection and management Managing improvement and change Management pr ocesses

Chapter 10 Change management

Viewed at a large scale across an entire industry, change takes two forms. Incremental change involves relatively small adjustments required by changes in the businesss environ- ment Chapter 4. Organizations scan their environment and make adjustments according to the introduction of new products from competitors, new laws or long-term changes in customer behaviour such as the increasing spending power of teenagers. Organizations also make changes to improve the efficiency of their processes. More significant discontinuous change or transformational change involves a major change in the business environment which changes the basis for competition. The opportunities and threats presented by wide- spread availability of low-cost Internet connectivity is a discontinuous change. Organizational change mirrors that at industry level. It can occur on a continuous or incremental basis or on a discontinuous basis. The introduction of e-business requires organizations to manage both types of change. Different types of change in business 566 Figure 10.3 The main challenges of managing sell-side e-commerce n = 84 Source: Econsultancy 2005 1 Gaining senior management buy- inresource Strongly agree [1] 32.14 27 1 2 3 4 5 6 Partially agree [2] 35.71 30 Neither agree nor disagree [3] 11.9 10 Partially disagree [4] 8.33 7 Disagree [5] 11.9 10 2 Gaining buy- inresource from traditional marketing functionsbrands 15.48 13 39.29 33 23.81 20 10.71 9 10.71 9 3 Gaining IT resourcetechnical support 32.14 27 36.9 31 10.71 9 11.9 10 8.33 7 4 Finding suitable staff 15.66 13 44.58 37 22.89 19 13.25 11 3.61 3 5 Finding suitable digital media agencies 9.52 8 26.19 22 35.71 30 15.48 13 13.1 11 6 Other please enter challenge 36.84 7 15.79 3 31.58 6 10.53 2 5.26 1 25 50 75 100 Part 3 Implementation Incremental change Relatively small adjustments required by an organization in response to its business environment. Discontinuous change Change involving a major transformation in an industry.