e-Commerce Implementation Time - break down please

[#1]

Hi There,

I'm advised that the 'average' implementation time for Webtools e-Commerce is around the 10 day mark.

Would someone please provide a breakdown of how that 10 days would be used?

I have a prospect who beleives it should be 'plug and play' and cannot understand why the 10 days is required. A breakdown of each task which would need to be performed along with the times associated with each task would be most helpful right now.

Best Regards

Richard

[Former Member]

Thanks for the replies.

Whilst I'm alot closer to having something to work with in regards to this prospect, the concept of pulling apart that 10 day figure is still of appeal.

The 10 day figure came from SAP - during a Webtools training session that our technical staff attended. My view is that if SAP are saying it's at least a 10 day install, it should be relatively easy to break that figure down further....

My understanding to date is that we would use and external party for template design - a concept I personally find a little challenging (introducing a third party element) but will go with it nonetheless.

Salespeople like me are often in a tough position, give a low estimate and you're accused of low balling a deal (to win more services later), give a high estimate and you're accused of profiteering!

Thanks again for your help.

Richard

[Former Member]

Good luck on that. And thanks for doing a little footwork.

Hopefully it will save people some grief

[Former Member]

Richard,

Again, it really depends on what your customer is looking for. Even having an external site design already completed in its entirety, which is what I did, there is still a lot of work going through the code and making sure that the right pieces of the page are being styled correctly. It took me personally about 2 days to just become familiar enough inside of the WebTools environment to where I felt that I could really start making headway on the implementation. Maybe your guys will be faster, but it is a steep learning curve to jump into WebTools and figure out how to make it work how you want it to.

Like I said in my original post, the amount of time per item depends on how complex your customer's demands are. Here are some questions to get started that will help us gauge a little better how much time it will take.

- How many items are in their existing B1 database?

- Are they using standard pricing or are they using hierarchies and expansions?

- What percentage of their items have different customizations available? (e.g. they sell computers, but the store needs to allow the customer to select the hard drive size and amount of memory, etc.)

- Are all their product descriptions already entered and accurate?

- How many Business Partners are in the database?

- Do they already have all the product images included in the B1 database, or in one central location or do they not have easy access to them?

- Do they expect any special features from the website, which would include things like related products (you'd have to enter those in manually) or simple things like category breadcrumbs? If so, what are they looking for?

- How good does the website need to look? Is it a B2B site that can be ugly and hard to navigate, or is it B2C that relies on converting customers from web searches and other traffic sources?

- Do they have a credit card processor that is compatible with WebTools? (PayFlowPro, Authorize.net, SkipJack, Ogone)

Unless your customer is willing to accept a non-customized, not good looking and poor conversion rate store, I still seriously doubt the 10 day implementation. That number may be accurate for someone who has done many previous implementations and is very skilled at WebTools, but for a partner just starting out, I think it is unreasonable to expect to be done in that time.

[Former Member]

Having worked for the company that SAP acquired and now working for SAP as the product expert for Web tools I would like to point out that the 10 day estimate is based on the facts pointed out in the previous posts.

You can actually install webtools in literally hours. Step through the installer, get your license, run the initial synch and there you have it. I do several installs a day here, setting up test environments, etc.

Now, I am using the B1 Demo Database, and I don't have an Internet's worth of people looking at the sites. So, can you install Web tools and have it go live in 10 days? Yes. Is it going to be what you want? Depends on what you want.

Most people that are successful with Web tools either fall into one of two camps. The first is the Derek's of the world, people who a) know what they want and b) can do what they want. The second would be people who a)don't know what they want and b)are ok going live without everything they want.

To be frank, in my experience, too many people fuss over the small stuff. Most of the time, after you go live, you truly discover what is and what is not important to your customers using the site. You can always tweak a live site after the fact, and in fact you should to keep fresh content and to keep your users coming back.

I have been asked hundreds of times how long it takes to get web tools up and running in relation to B1. My answer is always the same, 10 days to get it running, a month or more to get it perfect(depending on your definition of perfect) Website projects in general are more prone to scope creep than any other software implementation, and the honest answers you are getting on this thread certainly speak to uphold this theory.

This obviously doesn't directly answer your question. I will post some links to documents I had made in the past to help plan the implementation of a commerce enabled site.

[Former Member]

Hi Again,

Thanks everyone for your replies to date - I'm certainly alot closer to understanding this.

Any last pieces of information around these timing breakdowns would be really well appreciated by say 2pm today if at all possible please.

We have a second SAP B1 demonstration today at 3pm and I'm fairly sure that my prospect will want to include e-Commerce into their final decision (which is expected to come through next week)...so the more info we have the better...

Thanks again,

Richard

[Former Member]

I think Bryce summed up the process pretty well. If you know what you are doing it is really pretty easy to get Web Tools up and running and synching with Business One (10 days? Try 10hrs). In fact, installation is the easiest part. Creating a decent themes that really reflects the image of a company can take much longer. If your customer knows exactly what they want (do they have wireframes?), it will be a lot easier to get them up and running.

But that is just the start. In reality, creating themes that support the clients ongoing marketing and branding efforts is an ongoing process that never really ends. Running an e-commerce site requires constant attention.

I have found that layout designers whom have only created flat file sites or static flash driven sites sometimes don't understanding the requirements of more complex platforms.

Their themes tend to take a lot more work to put in place than someone who knows how to take advantage of themes, master pages, etc.

[Former Member]

Hi Everyone,

Thanks for all the replies - we're close to having what we need.

Bryce, I've just spoken with Murray Peters (our Professional Services Manager) and he said that you were present in the original training he attended some time ago in Sydney Australia...

I had no idea you were based out of the USA.

We are putting together some supporting documentation at the moment, and meeting the prospect again tomorrow afternoon. So that last piece of information (with detailed breakdowns) would be quite helpful.

Realise you've probably been under the pump so to speak.

Thanks again,

Richard