Buy or build? Securing competitive edge for ecommerce businesses

The explo­sion of choice for online shop­pers means busi­ness­es are under immense pres­sure to keep ahead of the com­pe­ti­tion. Build­ing and retain­ing com­pet­i­tive advan­tage is ever hard­er, as smart com­peti­tors con­tin­ue to emerge by the week. Firms need to con­sis­tent­ly attract more cus­tomers and keep them spend­ing mon­ey, but this requires enor­mous invest­ment in the right areas.

“Loy­al­ty is hard to win, and is depen­dent upon the abil­i­ty to pre­dict cus­tomer needs and expec­ta­tions and meet them effec­tive­ly,” says Mark Fish­er, chief com­mer­cial offi­cer at Cik­lum.

Online retail­ers suc­ceed­ing in this envi­ron­ment include the biggest house­hold names offer­ing fric­tion­less expe­ri­ences, which reflect what cus­tomers want at any giv­en moment. Such busi­ness­es make buy­ing enjoy­able and easy, with “a set-up that is absolute­ly tai­lored to cus­tomer needs,” explains Fish­er. “This is the only way to delight cus­tomers, cre­ate amaz­ing shop­ping expe­ri­ences and grow loy­al­ty.”

In sharp con­trast, some rivals are stuck with a com­plex buy­ing process, con­fus­ing cus­tomer jour­neys and poor ser­vice, which results in cus­tomers not com­ing back. “Any firms not get­ting this right can be sure their main com­peti­tors will,” Fish­er adds.

Achieving personalisation

Com­pa­nies yield 40% more rev­enue, accord­ing to McK­in­sey, when per­son­al­i­sa­tion is at the heart of their cus­tomer jour­ney. Con­sumers pre­sent­ed with con­tent and prod­ucts rel­e­vant to them are con­tin­u­al­ly more like­ly to spend with that brand. For com­pa­nies, the ongo­ing devel­op­ment of their plat­form and appli­ca­tions is now absolute­ly nec­es­sary in match­ing these needs.

In today’s mul­ti­fac­eted, mul­ti-plat­form world, how­ev­er, achiev­ing con­sis­tent­ly rel­e­vant per­son­al­i­sa­tion is becom­ing par­tic­u­lar­ly com­plex, giv­en the many per­sonas and their very var­ied ways of research­ing or buy­ing prod­ucts. And when pre­sent­ed with exten­sive choice, peo­ple change their minds more fre­quent­ly than ever before. Per­son­al­i­sa­tion, there­fore, has to be at the cut­ting edge if it is to work.

To com­pete well with a per­son­alised offer­ing, brands need to under­stand con­sumer behav­iour and need to con­tin­u­ous­ly add new fea­tures as cus­tomer demands and expec­ta­tions change. “It is essen­tial to har­ness data in order to under­stand your con­sumers and cre­ate rel­e­vant, fric­tion­less jour­neys,” Fish­er says.

Ensuring agility

Busi­ness­es may be tempt­ed by off-the-shelf prod­ucts and solu­tions in a bid to solve these chal­lenges quick­ly. How­ev­er, inte­grat­ing and cus­tomis­ing them can be far from straight­for­ward. “That approach is high­ly prob­lem­at­ic, as plat­forms are unlike­ly to be respon­sive to real-time, chang­ing needs,” Fish­er explains. “Keep­ing ahead of com­pe­ti­tion requires con­tin­u­ous plat­form inno­va­tion. This is hard to achieve with off-the-shelf ven­dors that have their own release time­lines and pri­or­i­ties around new func­tion­al­i­ty.”

This need for greater agili­ty is result­ing in the uptake of bespoke plat­form devel­op­ment, Fish­er argues. “When you go onto a great plat­form or appli­ca­tion, that sets the bar for every oth­er one you use. This sheer pace at which con­sumer expec­ta­tions are evolv­ing is tip­ping the scales towards build­ing rather than buy­ing.”

Nev­er­the­less, when busi­ness­es attempt to build their plat­forms, going it alone in-house tends to be slow and cost­ly, and requires a wealth of extra exper­tise. Increas­ing­ly, suc­cess­ful com­pa­nies are tack­ling this by bring­ing in out­side help from the start. “Choos­ing to build, with the right sup­port from experts, is key to doing this well and effi­cient­ly,” Fish­er notes. “Har­ness­ing the knowl­edge and exper­tise of those who have done this before is an obvi­ous choice.”

Success in practice

Suc­cess­ful design and imple­men­ta­tion of the build process means com­pa­nies require the right mix of tech­nol­o­gy, method­olo­gies and peo­ple. Many are turn­ing to Cik­lum, an indus­try-
recog­nised leader in cus­tom plat­form devel­op­ment. Cik­lum deliv­er indus­try-redefin­ing plat­forms through agile devel­op­ment and the appli­ca­tion of future-proof deliv­ery method­olo­gies.

“A key part of our work is inte­grat­ing teams into our clients’ oper­a­tions to fos­ter agili­ty and ensure effec­tive col­lab­o­ra­tion,” says Fish­er. Ciklum’s con­sul­tants work close­ly with the client and their end cus­tomers to design and build a tai­lored prod­uct roadmap. This is under­pinned by mul­ti­ple data points to ensure that plat­form devel­op­ment is dri­ven by what their con­sumers want.

Com­pa­nies work­ing with Cik­lum to achieve such tar­get­ed, rapid devel­op­ment include the online food order­ing giant Just Eat, which cur­rent­ly part­ners with over 580,000 restau­rants world­wide. Cik­lum has helped Just Eat scale effec­tive­ly and evolve their core prod­uct over the past decade. Dur­ing this time they have helped to make changes such as post-acqui­si­tion sys­tem migra­tions, appli­ca­tion improve­ments, the cre­ation of self-ser­vice tools for part­ner restau­rants, and sim­pli­fied restau­rant on-board­ing. Cik­lum also works close­ly with com­pa­nies across a range of sec­tors, includ­ing con­sumer, gam­ing and bank­ing to help them dif­fer­en­ti­ate their expe­ri­ence.

The vast increase in com­pe­ti­tion and cus­tomer expec­ta­tions means now is the time for com­pa­nies to advance rapid­ly with ded­i­cat­ed tech­nol­o­gy. To estab­lish and main­tain suc­cess, online offer­ings must be able to appeal to cus­tomers’ spe­cif­ic needs and guide them with­out fric­tion through entire engage­ment jour­neys.

“Com­pa­nies increas­ing­ly recog­nise they are wise to step away from off-the-shelf plat­forms that can’t keep up with cus­tomers’ chang­ing expec­ta­tions,” Fish­er con­cludes. “They know it’s time to focus on unlock­ing agili­ty and bring­ing in the right exper­tise to build plat­forms that engage and delight con­sumers. Doing so builds pow­er­ful loy­al­ty and reli­able, sus­tain­able suc­cess.”

If you are look­ing to gain a com­pet­i­tive edge through your plat­forms and appli­ca­tions, vis­it ciklum.com

Pro­mot­ed by Cik­lum