Too Many Cooks in the Kitchen – Who's Really Driving Your eCommerce Business?

 

An eCommerce owner commissioned a graphic designer to redesign the logo for his website. But instead of doing just the logo, the designer (who is also a friend of the owner) made some suggestions about the site’s layout and navigation. It must be pointed out that the site has been up for years, working effectively without any serious problems. Still, the owner was swayed to apply a few changes, which irked his web development team and caused some of the members to leave the company. The owner tried to persuade those who quit to come back and even considered undoing the changes to please them. This situation would make any observer ask: Who’s in charge here, really?

Running an eCommerce business requires hiring qualified personnel who will be responsible for various tasks – from web design and development to customer relations and order fulfillment. Depending on the scale of your business, you may either hire a person or two to handle multiple duties or assemble a team per department. But regardless of the number of people working for you, make sure that there’s a clear definition of roles – especially when it comes to making decisions.

Assign someone to run the show

In an interdepartmental organization, problems arise when the leader of a certain department would dictate or override the decisions of the lead personnel of another department. The challenge for eCommerce owners is to be very savvy in working with the leaders of every department to avoid internal conflict. If you have different team leads under you, part of your job is to rein them in but in a more diplomatic way. Or if you can afford it, designating an eCommerce manager would be a great alternative. The eCommerce manager will serve as the ambassador of the company. He or she will be tasked to communicate with each department, keeping tabs on the different operations while promoting the company’s best interest.

As the organization’s primary point of contact, the eCommerce manager will take part in the development and implementation of strategic plans with other department heads to support the company’s goals. As the owner, your role is to trust and support your team. Or else, you are going to be just another cook in the kitchen who spoils every decision.

Learn to trust your team

Many business owners tend to barge into meetings and impose their ideas with utter disregard for their team’s established process, thus disrupting everything. You may be the boss but that doesn’t mean you have to undermine your people’s decisions – especially if what you have with you are qualified, talented individuals. When you hire people to help run your eCommerce business, it goes without saying that you have to put your trust in them as well. Vetoing their every decision will not do the company any favors.

It is not surprising that big companies are prone to internal bickering. A large organization without an effective ring leader would only make everything go through a long, boring process of deliberation that you’d better off watching the presidential debates. The worse part of it is when things fall through, you can expect people to pass the buck. Small scale entrepreneurs are in a much better position – there are fewer people to please. But running a tight ship doesn’t have anything to do with the size of the, well, ship. It has everything to do with who’s really in charge.

By: Shirley Tan

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