Combilift

6 . Lessons learnt

There were a substantial number of lessons learnt during the implementation to date of this project.

1. Suppliers may push what they want to implement rather than what you need.
An example the Combilift team used here was the use of Flash technology for the design of the website.

Their suspicion was that this technology might be too leading edge for the market they are trying to address. A key requirement for anyone using their website would be to print off details to then study further offline. The use of Flash technology currently prohibits that. This is something they are exploring further in order to ensure it is optimised for the use of customers.

2. Planning is critical to successful and timely implementation
As discussed above, Combilift learnt through painful experience the importance of planning to timely roll out. The timing of the website rollout slipped due to a failure to plan thoroughly enough. However, the experience has led them to start the planning process early for the next phase of implementation, the dealer extranet.

The challenge is to work out at the start of the project what tasks will need to be carried out and, critically, what slack must be placed in the plan in order to cope with unforeseen problems. Employing a strong and experienced project manager for an eBusiness implementation will vastly improve the chances of a successful and timely rollout.

3. Ensure that there is enough dedicated resource on the project
At the start, Colin Gray the IT Manager, was not working full time on the project. The implementation took more of his time than was originally thought. The learning was that a project like this needs a full time project manager from the start in order to ensure successful implementation. It is easy to underestimate the resource requirement and then difficult to make up for lost time later.

4. Ensure that the supplier has the appropriate implementation experience
It turned out that Catseye had never implemented a website for a technical manufacturing firm previously. With hindsight Combilift would have preferred it if their supplier had had this experience. It would have eased the path of implementation due to the existence of reference points and deeper experience.

One of the challenges facing many SME’s is to ensure that they do not become the learning curve for suppliers as they break into new areas of technology or industries. The best approach is to ensure that similar implementation experience is a key criterion in the original choice of supplier. In Combilift’s case this was complicated by the fact that all the suppliers they met had only built experience in implementing in the technology and media industry and not specifically manufacturing environments.

5. Search engine optimisation is key
At the start of the project Combilift did not realise how important this process was to the success of their website. Colin is now responsible for ensuring that the right words and metawords fed into all the major search engines will lead to a top ten listing for Combilift.