What does it take to upkeep the digital solutions that have been implemented? Is a dedicated in-house team required to monitor and look at the platform constantly?
The maintenance of digital solutions is a valid concern that companies should consider. The visible and tangible change brought about by digital solutions can be likened to the renovation of the physical storefront. Upon revamping, it would look new and interest potential customers. But without upkeep, the initial newness and sparkle would be lost, leading to a decrease in traffic.
Staying Relevant
The number one priority should be keeping the business processes responsive to changes in the market. Reviews should be done at regular intervals. The business team should review changes in customer behaviours and examine where the business needs to be tweaked in order to stay relevant. They would then liaise with the solution provider to make appropriate changes to the system.
It is recommended to use scalable off-the-shelf, existing plug-and-play solutions instead of generating new programmes from scratch. Over customizing a solution will result in difficulty in responding to market changes and increased costs as more time and effort are needed to make changes.
Operational Support
At the operational level, a dedicated administrator is needed to update the content based on input from management, marketing and sales. This includes new product pictures, descriptions, pricing, as well as promotional offers. The administrator is also responsible to configure the reports from the system so that management can view them from their dashboards.
Existing sales and marketing personnel, order management and fulfillment staff, as well as planning and finance staff will need to be up-skilled to use the respective features of the digital solutions. They will be freed from handling the repetitive and mundane aspects of the operations which is now handled by the system. There is no technical team as the solution is cloud-based and there are no on-premise servers.
ASTAR Example
In the case of A*Star’s Research Support Centre, off-the-shelf solutions from Microsoft were used. The maintenance team consists of a project manager, an administrator and representatives from the sales and marketing, order management, finance and logistics units. They form the core team and work closely with Zooloo by tapping on our digital solutioning expertise.
Companies who wish to start their Digital Transformation journey or discuss the adoption of digital solutions can contact us at sales@zooloo.asia. We would be happy to hear from you.
Explore more
- Learn more about our “Digital Backbones”
- Learn more from our eBook series on Digital Transformation for Wholesale Trade
