Are Your Execution and Delivery Processes Ready for the Internet?: Beyond Blinking Lights and Acronyms

The Internet is a wondrous thing and has significantly changed the way we live and work. It has also changed our perception of time. We can send an email around the world in the blink of an eye and expect a response just as quickly. We can shop online, check the status and for some product download our purchase instantly. As a result anything we do on the Internet comes with an expectation of speed.

In the rush to meet or beat our competition and to better serve our customers it tempting to add a customer interface via the Internet. However, this mean more than just putting up a website and slapping an "e- " or "i- " label on something. Because of the speed expectation that comes with the Internet you also need to take a careful look at your execution and delivery processes.

Two examples of execution/delivery problems with Internet business come to mind. The first is Wal-Mart's digital photo processing service. Wal-Mart's like many others allows you to upload your digital photos so that they can be printed. The offer either 1-hour or 5-8 day service. This past week I wanted to get a print and got online before leaving to work to order it. Not wanting to wait 5 to 8 days I chose the 1-hour service even though I didn't need it that quickly.

When I placed the order I received a message:

"Due to large order volume, your 1-Hour Photo order has the following pickup time: 10:00 AM (CDT)"

Excuse me, but large order volume at 6:00 AM? My promised 1-hour service was now 4-hour service with no change in price for poor service. I doubt if there were really that many people in my area up at 6:00 AM uploading photos to Wal-Mart. It is more likely they had some other problem and just made up a flimsy excuse. But if their processing equipment really isn't setup to handle the 6:00AM photo crowd they would be better off not "providing" the service. Promising something you know you can't deliver is often worse than not trying to provide the service at all. It would have been better to promise 4-hour processing and reliably fulfill that promise than promise 1-hour processing when they can do it with any assurance.

The other more well known example is the recent issue of TurboTax and their problems with the filing deadline date. The crush of last minute filers overloaded the system causing many people to miss the deadline. Keep in mind that one of the touted advantages is how useful it it is for procrastinators. Their delivery and execution simply wasn't up to the task. It really should not have been surprised. A month before the deadline Intuit, the company that produces TurboTax, projected a 3% to 5% growth in TurboTax sales which they confirmed on April 18th. So there was really no reason for surprise. I've used TurboTax for years and believe it is one of the best software values around. I just hope they'll get it right next year.

The lesson in all of this is that just as adding an Internet interface changes the way your customers transact business with you it also changes the way that you have to execute and deliver on that business. The Internet changes the delivery expectations of your customers and it may also change the pattern of receiving orders as the 24/7/365 nature of the Internet no longer limits order receipt to "normal" business hours. When you put your business on the Internet make sure that all facets of your operations are ready for the change not just the order taking function.

What has been your experience with switching to an Internet based business?

Autobahn photo by kainet

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