As a result many top-flight projects stutter and fail as teams are forced to hire more help and members flounder in confusion about their respective roles and responsibilities.
Notwithstanding the industry's complexity and differentiation, all e-business projects can be sub-divided into three discrete work streams - digital strategy, technology and creative.
This segmented view helps with differentiating the three main types of websites, and the providers to whom they can be assigned without undue risk of failure.
The main difference between the first and second types is the digital strategy underpinning both (and, to a degree, the creative thrust). A campaign site has a marketing objective while a brochure site aims merely to inform. The difference between the first two and the third type is enormous - a great big technological leap entailing integration, automation, service intermediation and much else besides.
In short, there are huge gaps in the current landscape of e-business development. While these gaps mirror the abovementioned strategic, creative and technological gaps, they manifest in different ways.
Commonly, yawning gaps will be encountered in projects, between:
Provider types
The abovementioned gaps are further mirrored in the different types of e-business providers entrusted with building sites.
While a regular Web development firm can do the first site, it cannot build the second, as it lacks a marketing company or creative agency's experience in formulating digital strategy. A creative agency, on the other hand, may not have the front-end experience required to pass a usability test.
And neither of these companies has the wherewithal to attempt the third type of site without the help of a back-end integration specialist. Indeed, not even a back-end specialist generally possesses the necessary front-end, creative and strategic experience to attempt a full-scale e-business site by itself.
In short, just as heart surgeons are not paediatricians and architects are not quantity surveyors, none of the above specialists should claim to be anything they're not.
Ultimately, e-business projects don't fail because of incompetence; they fail because gaps are left unfilled, in turn the result of a lack of clarity about the roles of project members.
What is needed to realise your e-business dream is a holistic e-enabler with proven development expertise and an eye on the big picture, obtained through partnerships and project coordination.
Your partner's delivery framework should encompass a proven solution portfolio that integrates into best-in-class Digital.co.za/page/portfolio/ e-business platforms, lead development capability and comprehensive partner management framework, backed by a solid track record of complex deployments that scale massively. Failing that, crucial tasks will fall in-between the cracks and endanger the project.
By Wesley Lynch, CEO, Digital.co.za/ Realm Digital