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Technology Serving Business

COMP315 Lectures

Strategy, Operations & Tactics

These are in the following hierarchy:

  • Strategy
    • Operations
      • Tactics

They apply to the following analogy:

graph LR
Strategy <--> bm[Business Model]
Operations <--> td[Technology Decisions]
Tactics <--> Programming

This is to say that technology and programming both serve the business model.

Build, Buy or Rent

When deciding whether to make any technology for e-commerce consider the following flowchart:

flowchart TD
subgraph Should I design my own e-commerce software?
hb[How big is your company] -->|huge| yc[Your choice]
hb -->|large| uf[Do you need usual features]
uf -->|yes| ue[Try to use existing solutions as far<br>as possible, but modify as needed.]
uf -->|no| tm
hb -->|small| tm[No. At most, make some tiny<br>modifications to an existing solution.]
end

Designing your own e-commerce is generally a bad idea.

Available Options for Buy & Rent

  • You could sell on an existing platform, like Amazon.
    • Reliable and convenient, but the platform will take a fee.
  • You could purchase or rent a licence to an existing package.
    • More flexible than using an existing platform, but can be costly.
  • You could use (and possibly adapt) an open source platform.
    • Great flexibility, but requires more work and expertise than other options.