Global retail and e-commerce are booming today. as per Statistics, Online shopping is one of the most popular activities among internet users around the world. Only in 2020, retail e-commerce sales reached $ 2.28 TLn and are expected to reach a peak of 5.4 TLn by 2022. More and more companies are starting to sell online and the number of e-commerce platforms is growing rapidly.
With all this in mind, starting an e-commerce business is quite a complicated activity, especially for beginners. E-commerce startups face a wide range of challenges, from launching an e-commerce platform to sales management. All of these require a sophisticated strategy that includes an informed choice of project management methodology (PM), a well-calculated project management plan and much more.
In this article, you will discover why e-commerce project management is essential for the successful launch of an e-commerce business, how to choose the right PM methodology, and what steps e-commerce companies are taking to ensure stable development of their projects.
What is e-commerce project management?
E-commerce project management is a branch of traditional project management that has its own details. Basically, it is the practice of applying different skills, tools, techniques and approaches, as well as performing various activities aimed at the effective development of an e-commerce project.
E-commerce project management relies heavily on traditional time-management project concepts and approaches, although their application in e-commerce is far more challenging than in any other field. Businesses need to respond quickly to changes in the global, social and business environment while striving to attract new customers and retain existing ones.
Challenges facing e-commerce businesses without project management
In e-commerce, project managers (PMs) need to keep many activities under their control. They need to keep an eye on the business development of their competitors, be aware of the latest market trends, manage the development and maintenance of the company’s e-commerce platform, give an effective response to customer expectations and more and more. Under such circumstances, it is impossible to get a clear view on how to develop a business, let alone create high quality leads without a proper plan.
Good planning and careful selection of methodologies and project management tools enable e-commerce companies to:
What are popular project management methodologies?
A well-chosen methodology for an e-commerce project allows businesses to avoid many uncertainties in the beginning. On the other hand, it is often quite challenging to adapt one methodology to e-commerce. For this reason, executives prefer to incorporate a number of PM methodologies to better adapt them to existing business requirements.
Below is a list of the most common PM methodologies in e-commerce.
Agile
Agile methodology works great for projects with ever-changing requirements. In Agile a product is divided into small parts and developed in iterations. After each development cycle, the team changes the results and considers what innovations they need to add in order for the product to better meet customer expectations.
Many prime ministers choose the Agile methodology because it enables the collection of customer feedback throughout the development process. On the other hand, it is much more difficult to predict what the product will look like in the final development stage.
2. Scrum
The Scrum framework is commonly used to develop complex products. Scrum improves communication between team members, encourages them to exchange knowledge about ongoing processes and integrates their efforts to deliver high quality products. To this end, the software development team convenes for short daily stand-ups and the development process is divided into weekly sprints. Each week the team reviews the product results and decides which features they should apply later based on customer feedback.
The Scrum methodology brings teamwork to the forefront, therefore, it is essential that each team member has sufficient experience in building the product and can quickly resolve any issues that arise.
3. Cannabis
Kanban is a lightweight method similar to Scrum. It also includes sprints and a lot of communication. Meanwhile, Kanban is giving project teams more development freedom. The sprints are shorter, the tasks smaller and team members can deploy any product change during the sprints.
For Kanban, project teams use special boards divided into three categories: “To do”, “In Progress” and “Done” with stickers that have tasks on them. By moving stickers between categories, participants can track progress and apply any change during the product development process.
4. Skinny
The Lean methodology helps project teams to quickly develop the product that best meets customer needs. It removes all the insignificant features, and concentrates only on the useful parts. To this end, the team builds a sustainable minimum product (MVP) and presents new changes and enhancements at each stage of development. Thus, businesses in the field of e-commerce create a product that is already working at an early stage of the project and invest time and effort in improving it so that it will provide the most value to the customer.
When choosing the Lean methodology, prime ministers should keep in mind that it shifts its focus to product value rather than staff. Therefore, there will not be much room for training or frequent meetings.
5. Waterfall
The waterfall is a proven methodology that works great for projects with clear specifications. The Prime Minister develops a roadmap for the product from the very beginning of the project and the staff adheres to the plan without any deviations.
By using this methodology, prime ministers can simply calculate the budget and set deadlines for product development. However, it is difficult to make any changes to the product during the development process and the results may not meet the expectations of the often changing end user. Therefore, Waterfall is often used for building “mission-critical” or small projects.
Step-by-step e-commerce project planning is explained
Once an e-commerce company has chosen its PM methodology, it needs a sophisticated project management plan. Project planning helps businesses stay within the timeline and budget, avoid common strategic mistakes, and keep everything in order.
Here are the steps that an e-commerce company can take to ensure the success of its projects:
- Choose the most appropriate PM methodology for the e-commerce project – There is no need to choose just one methodology, mixing several of them makes e-commerce projects more flexible and easier to manage;
- Analyze competitors – For a business to survive, it is important to be able to offer its users the best online store experience; To this end, businesses track what innovations and technological methods their competitors use and how they position themselves in the market;
- Carefully plan an e-commerce project – For the project some development managers need to set clear goals and KPIs, select appropriate tools, consider the scope of work, define their products and deadlines, evaluate the budget and more;
- Assemble a project team and determine the workflow process – An e-commerce project usually includes a strong team of marketing and IT experts such as web designers, software developers, product researchers, sales representatives and others;
- Start developing an MVP – Having a sustainable and sustainable product helps businesses get in-depth feedback on customer needs at an early stage of software development;
- Monitor project development – When the work begins, it is essential to control how the development processes are conducted; To do this, prime ministers need to accurately manage time, scope of work and budget; One of the best ways to do this is to choose effective software and choose the right communication apps;
- Launch an e-commerce app and gather feedback – Releasing an e-commerce product to market is always a big moment for a business; At this point, it is important to gather customer feedback and define additional product development stages;
- Keep going back and checking out ideas – After launching the product, businesses need to define additional development stages, they can test their product, view its updates and go back to planning.
Summary
Launching and running an online business is a rather complicated and challenging activity. Therefore, e-businesses need to be well prepared and equipped for this. To facilitate the development of e-commerce projects and keep everything under control, companies need to carefully choose the project management methodologies they want to use, compile detailed project plans and gather a strong team of professionals.
SCAND, an experienced software development company, helps e-commerce businesses create powerful and efficient digital solutions that ensure their sustainable development in the market. For more than 20 years our software development team has been building various software solutions for e-commerce businesses, including mobile applications, web portals and platforms. Learn more about the e-commerce development services that SCAND offers and launch your projects quickly and efficiently.