I have managed the delivery of retail and eCommerce websites as projects or part of programmes across multiple sectors for the following companies:  JustEat, HRP, TUI, Sony, The AA, Saga Services. Saga Holidays, BAA, DHL and Virgin Media.  Each retail or commerce site will usually include multiple landing pages and online journeys to sell products and services. Project workstreams normally include design, build, integration and optimisation payment funnels and the integration of catalogues, shopping carts and various 3rd party payment solutions .

Online MarketPlace

My most recent assignment in this business sector was a project management role at JustEat the food delivery online marketplace.

I was responsible for delivering a targeted roll-out of a superior replacement B2B solution deployed into 1000 trading partners’ operations. JustEat wanted to test out  the capability of this upgraded product with selected restaurant partners,  to understand if these partners warmed to it’s new features and design. Part of my brief was to test our ability to build, package, distribute,  deploy  and support the new product. This project also mitigated a technical risk being carried in the latest release of the product. Scope included:

  • Business continuity planning,
  • Technology deployment and
  • Integration and
  • business and operational change (TOM) capability for roll-out at scale, across the UK.

Effective stakeholder management and governance were pivotal to the success of this project.

More information on this project can be found on this link.

Global brand selling products online

I was recently retained by Sony as project manager on the design and build of their new  online marketing channel  for the playstation.  This  was an integration project, deploying a  responsive web redesign onto a completely new CxM (Customer Experience Management) platform.  This customer experience is designed to promote the sale of gaming software and hardware (games consoles and equipment) and to drop customers into the sales journey on Playstation Store. Scope of the project was as follows:

  • New CX design: Federated across new/legacy architectures and Playstation Store:
  • New solution architecture design: Adobe Marketing Cloud including CMS (CQ) and DAM with MDM,  Site Catalyst and Test & Target components, hosted SaaS on Amazon AWS.
  • CxM development and integration that underpinned the new designs and a multichannel strategy.
  • Legacy content migration, SEO and localisation planning activities (40+ territories/locales).
  • Mixed internal/outsourced team, agile methods (TDD).

Development and Integration of Complex Online Retail

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Much of my online retail experience has been in the promotion and sale of more complex products such as financial services (The AA, Saga Services, a well-known UK multinational bank), global courier services (DHL), travel services and  holidays  (BAA, Saga Holidays, TUI Travel).  Examples are:

  • Insurance (motor, home and travel)
  • Roadside assistance
  • Personal investments
  • Holidays
  • International couriers involving data-capture on cross boarder customs, security, insurance etc

These products are more complex to sell than faster moving consumer goods such  digital games, food, tourist memorabelia or auto spares.

The challenge for the online selling of more complex products is to simplify the initial data-entry required from the customer and in particular to keep none account customers engaged in a multi-step sales processes.  Integration complexity of the product catalogue and CRM also varies according to the complexity of the underlying product being sold.

Most of my more recent assignments have been delivering technology, business change and integration to clients who are  selling complex products and services online as part of a multi-channel business, in many cases shifting towards omni-channel.

Selling Holidays and Travel Insurance Online

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I enjoyed working for the private equity business Acromas as their eCommerce Programme Manager. It was a group level programme delivering online retail propositions to customers of SAGA Services, The AA, SAGA Holidays and Titan Travel.  Online products and services we were selling included Insurance (motor, home and travel) roadside assistance, personal investments and holidays.

I’ve led or managed and  projects in the travel /holidays business which have included sales and eCommerce journeys  have been for

  • TUI Travel  (customer decisioning initiative) and
  • BAA  (re-platforming, hosting and redesign project).
  • Saga Holidays (web optimisation / AB and multivariate testing)

Online products and services for these businesses included flights, hotels, car hire, insurance, airport services and car parking.

Online retail for Banking and Logistics brands

DHL Express was reviewing it’s eCommerce / transactional capability and operational  integration.  During the  first assignment I  established the eCommerce and digital strategy for selling services across B2B and B2C channels. I was invited back 18 months later to deliver projects and manage change on website optimisation, mobile development, social media business integration and online/digital marketing processes.

I was also retained by a well-known UK multinational bank which was exploring a wider digital transformation from high street banking services to online retail banking. I was invited back a year after the first strategy assignment to deliver a proof of concept for the UK’s first mobile cheque payment solution, launched as a public trial in 2014.