Usually an organization undertakes a number of steps to reach its goals
These can broadly be put into either of the two categories; "one-time affair that the company engages itself in, such as a billion dollar project" or the "uncountable recurrent steps that the group is required to conduct on cyclic basis". Looking at the proportion constituted by the two classes, one gets to know that a major chunk falls under the "repeating ones". For instance, checking the inventory stock and placing orders with suppliers is a routine work. If by some means, this could be made to occur "on its own", it would scrap off the need for the operational staff to spend time in doing such jobs and give them the opportunities to get involved in other "more significant areas". This in turn, would make them more efficient.
This is exactly what is served by "ecommerce". The concept is basically all about "automating" the usual processes that are associated with organizational operations. A few of the domains that come under the umbrella named "ecommerce" are- Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), online transaction processing, inventory management and internet marketing.
Owing to the benefits brought by this idea, it has since long made its presence felt in giving the companies a "positive make-over". This is because it helps in "driving down the consumption of resources for an organization, by an incredible amount" and "expands the reach of business at a spectacular magnitude". Such acts decrease the inputs that go into generating a given amount of output.
However, employing this electronic strategy is not always as "rosy" as has often been depicted. Lacking either "commitment" or "investment" or "performance tracking" can give the organization a feel of moving on a "thorn-studded" path. Absence of a system to spot the onset of a "troublesome" situation or neglecting the signals that hint at onset of any such danger can be the reason for the organization"s doom.
Massive amounts of monetary infusion go into keeping the "tech-things" in place. These must be put to use, prudently to extract maximum value. Drawing from these ground realities, one feels that the company should bring a "quantitative methodology" for following the movements of this "electronic direction".
BSC (Balanced Scorecard) is the savior in this regard. It emphases the "multi-directional approach" that can make the profits jump in infinite manner. This is by framing relevant indicators in the various directions to measure the progress. The perspectives that can offer help are- Financial Perspective, Internal Operations Compatibility Perspective, Clickstream Perspective and Capability Perspective. Starting with the Financial Perspective, the indicators that can offer help are- Investment fraction in ecommerce, Ecommerce financial contribution, savings from ecommerce implementation and Cost: Benefit ratio. Internal Operations can be evaluated using metrics like "workforce ratio", "average staff engagement index", "number of options used for promotion of website" and "IT infrastructure integration degree". Clickstream Perspective can be analyzed by utilizing the parameters like "page views per session", "page sticking index", "per centage of orders on per session basis" and "shopping options skipping rate ".
Lastly, the capability perspective can be assessed by suing the metrics like "% improvement in flow of information experienced", "% increase in the number of transactions", "improvement in stakeholders relations" and "customization enhancement ratio".