Ok so the last three years this word above any has been at the core of my day.  However I feel its probably time to make a change and not even acknowledge the word exists.  Why? because I think it creates a kind of thinking and behaviour that is disruptive to innovation.  It signals a clear vote to one of the major enterprise commerce players or that you need to look at partners that have a proven checklist of capability.  Sound familiar, big bulky, slow, time consuming old I.T. world.

But surely this goes against everything we have built and tried to achieve over the last three years?  Why would I say such a thing?

I say such a thing because its making us look at every opportunity as a platform rather than an innovation in business or service offering.  More and more I  am having conversations about new ideas for services and or business lines that don’t involve a shopping cart.  This is where the next growth opportunity is going to be.  How do I transact with my customers, my partners without a shopping cart. Do I turn all my relationships into subscriptions or do we create tools, apps or accounts into one click intelligent transactions? Are we already getting the feeling that there a more and more services out there that take our money off us with such convenience that we enjoy the pain.  Are we seeing better mobile apps that play to convenience around the transaction? Ringing any bells?  I can count 5 mobile apps that take my money off me every week with such convenience I think they have done me a favour and I’ve gone to the trouble in paying an extra 20p for the process.

What does this mean for us and the e-commerce vendors?  Well vendors you are simply not moving quick enough. For us we need to concentrate on the transaction and service.  Above all we need to think outside the box and innovate even if it means adding bespoke technology back into the mix.