Scenario-Based eCommerce Technology Evaluation Process

The eCommerce technology selection process is broken. Both buyers and technology providers are feeling the pain. The courtship ritual of requests for proposals (RFPs), vendor demos, and reference checks routinely fail to show how technologies and solutions will meet fundamental business needs. Solutions become homogenized by this process, and buyers and sellers alike are hard pressed to find ways to differentiate. How will the solution address the business requirements, enable the desired customer experience, or meet the technology and integration objectives differently from other options? To help clients answer these important questions, Forrester has devised and vetted a better way to make these high-cost complex decisions. This approach — a scenario-based technology evaluation process (STEP) — will lead to a better fit between buyer and seller and one that ultimately leads to multichannel eCommerce success.