We have all been touched by the e-commerce wave, whether as a consumer or a business supplying goods and services. It is clear the internet allows the small company to look and feel big depending on their web presence, and services and large companies to feel like a small company with the way they portray their businesses on the web. This is an opportunity to support your marketing strategy and position your brand to support your organization’s strategy and mission.
In this newsletter let’s look at an important question: “Is It Something For You To Consider For Your Business?” What are some of the things we will need to consider? Let’s start from an historical perspective as a level set and move from there.
Significant Events Shape the Future of Companies, Markets and People
- For example, in retail, the first disruption arrived in the form of department stores. Retailing was originally dominated by local merchants who provided value to their customers by keeping large inventories, extending credit, and offering personalized advice. The industry changed dramatically in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as a result of the first retail disruption: the launch of department stores like Marshall Field and R.H. Macy to name a few.
- In manufacturing, for the first time, Henry Ford’s entire Highland Park, Michigan automobile factory is run on a continuously moving assembly line when the chassis the automobile’s frame–is assembled using the revolutionary industrial technique. A motor and rope pulled the chassis past workers and parts on the factory floor, cutting the hours required to complete one “Model T” from 12-1/2 hours to six. Within a year, further assembly line improvements reduced the time required to 93 minutes. The staggering increase in productivity effected by Ford’s use of the moving assembly line allowed him to drastically reduce the cost of the Model T, thereby accomplishing his dream of making the car affordable to ordinary consumers.
Events Shape Companies and, Without Change, the First 100 Years of a Company’s History Does Not Guarantee the Next 100 Years
- A key lesson for leaders is the first hundred years of a company does not guarantee the second hundred years.
- There are many great American brands who have stood the test of time.
- The key to the second 100 years:
a. anticipating where the market is going,
b. making tough decisions,
c. effectively communicating when changes need to be made. - Look at Sears and Woolworths as examples.
Leaders Anticipate
One of the key lessons I’d like to share with you is this…leaders anticipate! Leaders go to where the puck is going, not to where the puck has been.
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE PODCAST, GO TO WHERE THE PUCK IS GOING
What is eCommerce?
Electronic commerce, commonly written as e-commerce or eCommerce, is the trading or facilitation of trading in products or services using computer networks, such as the Internet or online social networks. Electronic commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, Internet marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange (EDI), inventory management systems, and automated data collection systems. Modern electronic commerce typically uses the World Wide Web for at least one part of the transaction’s life cycle, although it may also use other technologies such as email.
How Does eCommerce Work With Our Current Business and Our Retailing Needs?
- First, we need to start with the definition of retailing, to understand how to manage and utilize it to help us grow our businesses going forward.
- Second, we need to explore how we utilize technology to move our businesses forward, like the way the assembly line helped Henry Ford. The essential mission of retailing has always had four elements: getting the right product in the right place at the right price at the right time. With the explosion of ecommerce, I suggest a fifth element – utilizing the right technology.
Every Sound Business Decision Must Be Rooted in Balance.
Balanced Leadership are principles to manage by that, I believe, help optimize business performance while satisfying the needs of your customers, your people and your stakeholders.
Think Like a Customer
Electronic commerce accelerates the shift of power toward the consumer, which leads to fundamental changes in the way companies relate to their customers and compete with one another. Managers must ask themselves whether their companies are capable of competing in this ever-expanding marketplace – and whether they can afford not to. Three key considerations are:
- Your ability to create a seamless customer experience, making it as easy as possible for your customers to do business with you.
- Your ability to deliver the goods quickly and as cheaply as possible.
- Whether your company is capable of, and willing to, change its business model.
Feel Like a Valued Customer
From a consumer perspective, packaging enables the most unique commerce experience. It provides an infinite possibly of choice in product to fulfill any need from liquid to fragile, ecofriendly to lifesaving. Returns also allow the customers the opportunity to make a mistake and not be penalized.
Act Like an Owner
In retailing and manufacturing, profitability is largely determined by two factors:
- The margins stores can earn.
- The frequency with which they can turn their inventory over.
- Preventing damage and providing easy returns greatly impacts revenue and profitability.
- The returns process often is the differentiator for a customer and an important part of the value add.
Process Maintains Consistency and Ties Everything Together
The process must include factors that achieve operational excellence. Here are some of the advantages from an e-commerce strategy that you can get that, individually, they may not be able to achieve in scale by understanding the key parts of the e-commerce chain:
- Distribution centers by working with a 3rd party.
- Consolidate products at optimal locations, positioning your inventory close to your customers in major markets — getting to market faster and reducing outbound shipping costs
- Value-added services like quality control and testing; assembly, kitting, packaging and labeling, and store-ready displays
- Meet exact specifications and do whatever it takes to present your product exactly how your customer wants it
- Returns handling
Optimizing Operations
Identify your strategic suppliers and work better with logistics providers. Fulfillment can be done with a combination of inventory from member participants such as Harley-Davidson and Nordstrom models, along with a smaller distribution type model.
Conclusion – Accelerate Growth ● Streamline Processes ● Achieve Results
We have launched Season 6 of the Leadership Library Podcast, where
we discuss many of these topics.
https://tightenthelugnuts.com/podcasts
Have a great 2023 and BE THE ARCHITECT OF YOUR OWN DESTINY
For more information visit our website https://www.3sixtymanagementservices.com/. My book,
Tighten The Lug Nuts, will also serve as a workbook for these important topics and discussions.
Read my latest Forbes article:
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Visit our web site, https://3sixtymanagementservices.com, as well as my
book, Tighten The Lug Nuts, for additional information.
Contact me at:
[email protected].
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