Guide to IT Planning: Answering the what, why, who, and how

26 July 2021
16:08

Introduction

IT planning is often a neglected process in businesses because they do not understand the importance it holds for business growth. That is why when businesses suffer losses or face some delays, they never think of inadequate IT planning as one of the possible reasons.

However, a Guide to IT Planning is an important factor that can drive business outcomes if done properly; if not, it may lead to inefficient processes that result in high costs or delays.

Organizations do not make the Guide to IT Planning a strategic exercise that is to be done once or twice a year. If they experience any problem in any IT application, system, services, or software, they just upgrade, change, or replace it. However, this is not sustainable or beneficial for the organization in the end. An IT plan is much more than just a short-term solution in case of a technology-related crisis.

A personalized approach in the Guide to IT Planning to make your the process smoother and clearer

Guide to IT Planning : What is IT planning?

IT planning is the process of planning for the investment and use of IT systems, applications, and services. The basic premise behind IT Planning is defining and predicting the acquisition and usage of IT hardware and software in the business processes to achieve the broad, strategic objectives of the enterprise. The CIOs and CTOs along with other senior management of the organization are involved in the IT planning to ensure the IT assets work properly and ensure business continuity, lower costs, and save time.

Guide to IT Planning : Why do IT Planning?

A Guide to IT Planning is important because of the following reasons:

IT keeps the operations of an organization running and ensures collaboration and communication between different teams and amongst team members; to avoid any failures or breakdowns in these, IT Planning is important

IT Planning gives a structure to the business’s attempt to strategize, control, and manage the usage of IT in their operations and processes so that the impact results in reduced costs, higher productivity, and more value

IT planning is a way to guarantee the acquisition or development of IT assets or solutions, implementation of these solutions, up-gradation of them when required, and using the solutions for various business processes to deliver desired results

IT Planning requires an understanding of your organization’s IT strengths and weaknesses, and based on this, you plan the IT initiatives that make your organization more mature, more ready to tackle the risks, and makes your business strategy sustainable and achievable

IT Planning includes the effective organization of IT assets in the business; creating a set of instructions, guidance, and best practices for their use; deciding the human resources and capabilities required to manage them, and establishing standards of measuring performance to check if the expectations are met

With an IT plan, you get an idea about the opportunities that emerging technologies and innovations in IT can bring to your processes, and also you anticipate the challenges and uncertainties that new IT initiatives bring along so that you can have contingency plans in place

Planning of IT helps you in making decisions for the business operations, designing and developing the business strategy, building up a collaborative environment between various functions with IT departments, and earning the trust and credibility of multiple stakeholders

Comprehensive, clear, sustainable, actionable, and achievable IT plan just for you.

Guide to IT Planning : How we do IT Planning

The process of planning for IT requires several steps according to the Guide to IT Planning. Still, it is a crucial component for every business, as a properly planned IT plan saves your time in execution and also results in higher ROI.

The IT plan must have all the necessary components such as a mission statement, assessment of the company business plan, SWOT analysis of its IT assets, understanding of the gaps, budgeting and scheduling, finalization of the IT plan, and finally, execution.

The process should start with a discussion and interaction with all the possible stakeholders of an IT plan - means the ones who will be involved in the planning, implementation, and usage of the IT plan. Stakeholders must be fully involved in every step of the IT planning process.

You can conduct focus group discussions, interviews or disseminate employee surveys to collect information about stakeholders’ views on the current IT assets.

In this phase, it is crucial to research the current IT trends in your industry of operations, new emerging technologies and IT initiatives, and best practices that make IT operations effective in an enterprise.

After the collection of all this information, the next step is assessment. This phase will help in understanding what the organization’s existing IT capabilities are and what the gaps are. A gap analysis will assist in knowing what improvements are required in the organization’s IT assets to improve efficiency. These improvements may include up-gradation, replacement, or change, which also depends on the funding for the project.

Now, you can document all this information in a proper template for presentation to the top management. It must include all the possible scenarios and possibilities of strategic IT initiatives and the stakeholders’ comments on them. For each of the possibilities, the timelines, costing, and human resource requirements must be mentioned clearly. You must write a detailed plan with priorities set for each IT initiative along with the outcomes and funding requirements.

The last step is to present the IT plan to the top management for the necessary authorization. Obtaining the approval of top management is crucial since it gives access to the required resources and funding. The approval leads to confidence among the involved stakeholders, and they understand the significance of the IT plan. The IT plan may require some changes here and there, which must be incorporated, and the plan must be finalized.

Although the Guide to IT Planning completes at this stage, the on paper and execution is the next step; however, the IT plan may require changes during the execution stage. These changes erupt because of the changes in the economic landscape, industry scenario, emergence of new technologies and innovations, uncertain conditions such as a financial crisis or funding issues. You must ensure to keep track of all these changes and incorporate them in the IT plan for effective outcomes in the end.

Challenges of IT Planning

IT plan has a clear definition; still, you may face many challenges that may upset the process, increase the costs, or lead to undesired outcomes. Therefore, you must be wary of the possible challenges and make yourself ready with possible solutions to avoid delays or high expenses.

Questionable leadership

There might be a possibility that the company does not have a good leader for the IT department to conduct the IT planning. This is a big challenge for any company since it would be difficult for the top management to realize the source of the problem.

Confusion in priorities

There might be many changes or upgrades required in the IT infrastructure and assets in the queue. However, it is the responsibility of the CIO or the person responsible for IT planning to prioritize them based on the importance they hold for generating business outcomes and budgets. IT plan may suffer if the CIO is confused about what IT initiative to prioritize and what can be done later.

Lack of support from top management

It is crucial to obtain the top management’s support for the IT plan. They must also be involved at every step to show their interest and commitment to bringing IT transformation to the company. The support from top management leads to motivation among employees who start believing in the IT plan and contribute to its planning and execution wholeheartedly.

A disagreement between stakeholders on IT initiatives

Stakeholders’ views on the current IT capabilities and requirements of improvements are important to develop the IT plan. These stakeholders are the ones who will be planning, implementing, and using the IT plan. If there is no agreement amongst them regarding the bottlenecks, possible solutions, and priorities, it becomes difficult to formulate the IT plan.

No definition of key performance indicators

Once the priorities of IT initiatives are set, the CIOs must define the KPIs for each to review the performance. Such an evaluation of the outcomes is vital to understand if the particular IT initiative is successful or not and what the bottlenecks were in its success. If there are no KPIs defined, it becomes difficult to comprehend the outcomes of IT initiatives, and thereby, the success of the IT plan is doubtful.

Technovisors’ expert IT strategy consulting services just for your IT needs.

Conclusion

Now, we understand what IT planning is, what its components are, how it is done, and the challenges faced in the IT planning process. With all this information, you are all set to engage in IT planning for your organization.

If not, you can still hire IT consultants that can take up the IT planning for your organization or guide you in each of these steps to make a strong, sustainable, and effective IT plan. However, you must be very careful with the selection of the right IT consultant that can help you make a realistic and realizable IT plan.

Our IT planning services

Technovisors is an IT planning expert. We are a leading IT strategy consulting services provider in Ahmedabad that helps you with IT Planning, scoping, budgeting, and implementing to reach your business goals. We assist you in making strategic decisions for your IT initiatives, including prioritization, resource allocation, time provision, and budgeting. We have the relevant technical skills, insights into industry trends, and experience with multiple industry verticals to guide you to make a sustainable IT plan.

Creating value for your business through IT planning services. That is Technovisors for you.

About the Author

Pathik Shah

(CISA, FCA, CS, DISA (ICAI), FAFP (ICAI))

Pathik is a multi-disciplinary professional with more than 22 years of experience in compliance, risk management, accounting, system audits, IT consultancy, and digital marketing. He has extensive knowledge of Anti-Money Laundering rules and regulations, and he helps companies comply with legal requirements. Pathik also helps companies generate value from their IT investments.

Why Excel is Not the Right Tool for Requirements Handling?

26 July 2021
15:42

Introduction

Every product development or project management process requires a well-structured and well-defined list of key requirements. Project requirements serve as the basis for carrying out the next steps that lead to the final product creation or project completion. Therefore, businesses must pay full attention to jotting down project Requirements Handling and employ effective methods to manage them well during the project execution phases.

Businesses use various tools for listing down requirements such as Word, Excel, and customized requirements management tools, the most common being Excel. Excel has advantages of managing requirements such as being cost-effective, easy and convenient to use, and requires no specific training. However, it must not be the most preferred tool for writing system or project requirements, as there are numerous disadvantages of using Excel. Here, in this article, we shall explore the reasons why you should not use Excel for requirements handling.

Your go-to solution for requirements handling – Technovisors.

Disadvantages of using Excel for requirements handling

Sharing and updating Excel is difficult

If a project has too many people working on it, it becomes difficult to share a single, updated Excel file between multiple people and teams. With so many people working on the sheet at the same time, updating it regularly, and making changes, people get confused as to the final, updated sheet that has all the updates on requirements.

Possibilities of error are high

There are higher possibilities of the existence of errors in Excel. The error may be of any kind, ranging from a text or formula error to inconsistency in format. Moreover, it becomes difficult to spot the error when so many people are working on it and making multiple versions with their changes.

Higher possibilities of Excel spreadsheet being lost or being shared externally

You may lose the data on requirements you have saved in Excel if something bad happens to your laptop or desktop computer. This may result in all your or your employees’ efforts turning to zero. Furthermore, it is also easier to send the Excel sheet to anyone via an Email, specifically an unhappy employee who may just send it to his/her personal email id or any competitor’s contacts, thereby compromising the security of your project requirements.

Existence of several versions of requirements

If the Excel sheet is shared among many people working on the project, after a time, it will be confusing to find out the master file that contains all the updates and changes. Often, project managers face such situations when they have no answers to questions like:

Who made the changes?

What changes each one made?

Why were those changes made?

Is there any relation between different points of data?

This happens because when people start updating, they start with the original file, but simultaneous changes by different employees lead to many versions of the same original Excel sheet. This situation arises when employees forget to upload the changes and edits in a single, central repository file, leading to a messy requirements datasheet.

Data visualization and reporting are another cause of worry

You can surely create charts and graphs in Excel; however, the problem lies in the presentation of multiple charts and graphs. Assembling these charts and graphs and making them visually appealing takes time and effort. Reporting Excel data is also a difficult exercise, which you need to master to harness its benefits. Furthermore, there are no specific metrics to measure the information, which is very essential for any project.

Users start focusing more on understanding Excel than project work

Working on Excel is a manual task. One needs to be knowledgeable about using it, play around with it to harness the actual benefits, and practice regularly. On the other hand, requirements gathering, sharing, collaboration, and using them for carrying out project processes is the actual need.

With more of your project efforts going into practicing Excel, the actual skills and efforts of employees are wasted, which could have been put to better use for the project execution and success. Poor use of resources leads to waste of money and time, thereby resulting in project inefficiencies and management ineffectiveness.

Collaboration and communication become unmanageable

It is difficult for employees to collaborate and communicate over an Excel sheet. The key problem lies in tracking the multiple edits made by multiple people and tracing who did what. Even continuous manual monitoring becomes next to impossible since tracking changes in an Excel sheet is difficult. This also affects project accountability and may lead to blame-game, creating conflicting situations and destroying the team productivity.

No possibility of customization as per the industry requirements

When you deal with different projects with different requirements in different industries, you yearn for a customized way of representing the requirements. However, this is not possible with Excel. A general way of representation of requirements does not work well for all industries where the projects are complex. Complex projects involving a lot of people, functions, and tasks need multi-directional planning, for which Excel does not prove to be sufficient.

Increased stress and frustrations for employees

Working with Excel – a limited functionality application - is not an easy task. You have to be extra careful in making entries, which may drain you completely. This extra carefulness requires you to spend time ensuring the spreadsheet’s completeness, a well-structured representation, and making it updated, accurate, timely, and transparent to all employees involved in the project. All of these can lead to highly stressful situations and frustrations, thereby demotivating the employees. Stress results in more mistakes or delays in handling requirements, which may harm the project execution.

Conclusion

You should understand the significance of requirements management for a project’s successful execution. And to handle the project requirements smartly, you need a smart requirements handling tool to improve your efficiency and effectiveness. With all the above-mentioned drawbacks, Excel is not the right tool. You must look for something that makes your data accessible, manageable, transparent, traceable, and reusable.

Who are we?

Technovisors is an Ahmedabad-based IT consulting, digital marketing, and data analytics firm. We play a significant role in simplifying the IT solutions for your business requirements. Our IT consulting services ensure that your IT issues are resolved, and the business solutions that you implement help you achieve your business goals. We understand that the project requirements are a key part of successful project execution, and therefore, assist you with requirements management based on your technology and business needs.

We bring the right IT solution to your project needs.

FAQs

01 Why do we need to list down our requirements?

No. We customize our services based on our client’s requirements and business types. It differs from industry to industry and project to project.

02 Can we use Word for requirements handling?

Yes, we can help you with everything to make a project successful, including requirements management, selection of vendor, implementation, and post-implementation review for separate pricing.

How Bad Project Requirements Break the Project?

26 July 2021
15:06

Introduction

What is the worst thing that can happen to a business project? Time delays? Budget overshoot? Incompetent human resources? Wrong leadership? Yes, these are the various possibilities that can lead to project failure, among many others. However, a key factor contributing to the failure of numerous projects across the world is ‘bad project requirements.’

Fight with your project management issues by associating with us.

Technovisors – the guiding light to a project’s success!

What are bad project requirements?

Project requirements are bad when:

They are not clear, comprehensive, and complete

They do not define the specific goals that the project intends to achieve

They do not define the requirement of human resources in terms of skills, efforts, and time

They do not define the business processes required to achieve the expected outcomes

Such bad requirements may lead to reworks, delays, high costs, and dissatisfied clients. On the other hand, good project requirements lead to more clarity on what needs to be achieved and how it will be achieved. They define the roles and responsibilities of every person involved in the project, key outcomes expected from the project, and the time and budget available for the project. Specifically, good project requirements make the project less confusing and more results-driven, thereby having higher possibilities of client satisfaction.

You may feel that gathering requirements is an easy task. However, that is not the case. It requires you to understand what questions to ask, whom to ask, and how to synthesize the information from those responses to create a list of requirements. If not done correctly, it may lead to bad project requirements, which may hamper the project completely.

How Bad Project Requirements Affect Your Project and Cause Delays?

Bad quality of project requirements leads to the following effects on the project, which may result in project failure:

You are not able to plan the project properly

The key requirement for the success of any project is a proper plan. If the project plan does not exist or is incomplete, the execution becomes a chaotic process, leading to failure. Therefore, proper planning for the project is essential, which comes from a properly written, detailed list of bad project requirements.

Once the requirements are set, you can make a full-proof plan with details on:

All stakeholders

Goals to achieve

Deliverables at the end

Roles and responsibilities of every project person

Budget

Timelines

Communication plan

Metrics to measure performance

It takes a toll on the project scope, resulting in wrong scheduling and budgeting

With incomplete or unclear project requirements, it becomes difficult to document the goals properly. The people involved in the project remain confused about the goals to achieve, deliverables expected by the client, and the overall impact of those deliverables on the client’s business. All this confusion leads to unnecessary, irrelevant work that does not add to the outcome or project movement is multidirectional with no single, definite goal to achieve. This can, in the end, lead to a waste of effort, time, and money.

You forget to make plans for possible risks to the project and solutions for those

Once you mention all the project requirements comprehensively and clearly, you also become aware of how to fulfill those requirements and the various risks that may affect the path of fulfillment. These risks are nothing but the possibility of something going wrong with the key components of a project plan. Something on the lines of escalation of costs, delays in tasks and activities, governance issues, problems in processes and procedures, and occurrence of uncertain events.

Being aware of all these possible risks to your project helps you to be better prepared for facing them. Furthermore, with awareness of possible risks, you gather knowledge about the plans to mitigate or manage those risks, so that project outcomes are not affected negatively. You also identify the trigger points for each risk and make a backup plan in case of serious harm to project execution. Therefore, you must give due importance to mentioning the project requirements in detail to avoid facing these risks.

It becomes difficult to bring all the participants on a common platform

Listing all the project requirements is a parallel process of aligning the thoughts of all participants involved in the project. While listing the project requirements, you talk to every participant, get their views, and comprehend their understanding of the project goals and expectations. In summary, you conduct thorough research to get hold of the thoughts of every participant.

While listing down the requirements, you summarize these thoughts and list down the important ones. In this process, you will be required to discuss with them the priorities of the project and make them agree on the list of requirements. This is how with a good list of project requirements, you can bring all the participants on a common platform of objectives and expectations from the project.

You have to deal with the chaotic communication and relationships

If you do not state the project requirements clearly in detail, it affects the communication between the various teams involved in the project execution. It also affects the relationships between stakeholders, which may, in turn, hamper the project. Thus, avoid the ambiguity in stating project requirements to save the project process from getting confusing and messy.

With clear, comprehensive project requirements, every participant is aware of who is doing what, who will report to whom, and what outcomes the team will generate. In a way, the team dynamics become stronger because of the clear sharing of roles and responsibilities, and hence, communication between project participants improves—better communication results in improved relationships between participants, which affect the project processes positively.

Conclusion

You must be very careful while stating project requirements, as it is an essential ingredient of a successful project. Any vague, incomplete, and loose list of project requirements will affect the project planning, scoping, scheduling, and relationships between stakeholders negatively. Therefore, to avoid project delays and inaccuracies, implement the right solutions for requirements management that can facilitate project execution. You can hire a good professional services firm that can help you deal with requirements management.

Who are Technovisors?

We are a leading provider of IT consulting, data analytics, and digital marketing services. We help our clients with the evaluation of their needs, cost/benefit analysis of possible solutions, smooth implementation of the project, and selection of the right vendor. Technovisors expertise lies in full guidance to you to complete the project successfully without any glitches.

Looking for help in requirements management? You have arrived at the right spot.

FAQs

01 What do you require from us when handling requirements management for our project?

No. We customize our services based on our client’s requirements and business types. It differs from industry to industry and project to project.

02 Do you also help with project implementation?

Yes, we can help you with everything to make a project successful, including requirements management, selection of vendor, implementation, and post-implementation review for separate pricing.

Why is requirements management important for the successful execution of a project?

26 July 2021
12:28

Introduction

The scope of the project, start date, end date, desired outcomes, human resources, technology functionalities, budget, expected challenges, metrics for measurement, and many other factors define a project. These are called project requirements. If project requirements are defined clearly before starting the project, successful execution is possible. Without a clear mention of project requirements and strong requirements management, the direction of the project becomes uncertain, which leads to a disaster.

Therefore, it is extremely critical to plan for the project requirements. While it is not an easy process, requirements management is the base that will generate the expected deliverables, satisfying all the involved stakeholders. Yes, we all know how the market is dynamic, goals change, innovations happen, and competitive strategies are in play; still, you need to figure out all the project requirements and manage them well to ensure project success.

Requirements management services for you to march ahead easily.

Why is Project Requirements Management essential?

Project requirements management is necessary to have a clear view of the project expectations. It helps you with the following:

A clear, defined scope and objectives

With the help of project requirements, you can have a clear idea of what the project size will be and what basic activities it would involve. This will enable you to prepare yourself and your team for the days to come and arrange for the required resources.

Clear project requirements also give a defined shape to the objectives of the project. The initial draft project requirements lead to a definition of the goals and objectives, which further lead to clear, detailed requirements.

A deeper understanding of project outcomes

When you have the project requirements ready and you know the objectives, you get a better picture of the expected outcomes. You generate valuable outcomes, making them quantifiable and hence, comparable with the defined objectives. You and your employees involved in the project will understand what outcomes they need to achieve and what activities will lead to the expected performance, thereby adding value to the project.

Better management of resources

With a clear definition and management of requirements, you will find it easier to manage the resources. These resources include human efforts, skills, time duration, technology, and finances that make the execution of the project possible. When you clearly define the project requirements, you can define the workflow, processes, and procedures for the completion of defined tasks.

With that, you can allocate the right people to complete each step, determine the time taken for each task, and calculate the costs for every phase of the project. You will also get to know what technologies you require or what specific skills are needed to ensure the delivery of the right outcomes. The right allocation, conduct, and management of all these resources are made possible by requirements management.

A smoother execution

Once the project requirements are defined clearly, it becomes clear to everyone what needs to be done and how to achieve the desired results. With more clarity, it becomes easier to execute the project. Situations may change, which may change the requirements; however, the overall idea of requirements gives a clear path for the movement of the project over its execution period.

Higher commitment from employees

With a clear set of requirements, all the human resources involved in the project are clear of the expectations from them. They are aware of what to do, what to achieve, what not to do, what skills to use, and many more. Such clarity in the definition of required efforts and the process of converting those efforts to desired outcomes is what motivates them to perform better. It keeps them going – keep them working towards achieving the desired goals. If you handle requirements management well, you can expect your employees to commit to the project wholeheartedly.

A better communication structure

When you define the project requirements in a clear, defined way, you put a framework of roles and responsibilities of each person and technology for the project’s success. This gives a defined structure to the reporting and communication required for the project. And, we all know that good project communication is a necessary ingredient for its successful completion.

Lesser complications and conflicts

With so many processes going on in a project simultaneously, it becomes complicated sometimes. However, you can reduce these complications with good project requirements management. If you define the requirements clearly, with a clear objective and a clear performance measurement indicator for each, the complications reduce, and project direction becomes simpler.

With a clear definition of requirements, every stakeholder involved is aware of and accepts the project scope and expectations. Furthermore, clients are also careful about not suggesting unnecessary changes to the requirements, and even if they do, they are aware of the impact on the project time and budget. This reduces the chances of conflict internally within the team and externally with the client.

Reduced possibilities of risk

A comprehensive and clear list of project requirements gives a view of what will happen to the project. All the stakeholders have general knowledge of the expected results. They know what might be the possible challenges, and therefore, they prepare themselves for those obstacles. This reduces the chances of errors or risks, which may fail the project in the end. Therefore, requirements management is crucial to reduce the probabilities of errors and risks and have a strong risk management plan for the project.

Final Thoughts

Therefore, you must understand how critical project requirements management is for any project’s success. Without well-defined project requirements, there are possibilities of delays, rework, inaccuracies, conflicts, and ambiguities. To avoid these problems, make it a habit to define project requirements and document them in an organized manner to reduce the likelihood of failure.

What is the role of Technovisors in requirements management?

We are an Ahmedabad-based leading IT consulting, Data Analytics, and Digital Marketing Services provider. We are experts in developing project requirements, documenting them, executing them successfully, and measuring them to help you achieve the desired results. We provide customized services to every client by understanding their business, the purpose of the project, and clarity on the deliverables and results. Our team of business analysts and IT advisors ensure that your project requirements are complete, error-free, and clear so that your project execution is smoother and faster.

Defining project requirements: A step towards project success Book a consultation

FAQs

01 Do you follow a defined procedure for requirements management for a customer?

No. We customize our services based on our client’s requirements and business types. It differs from
industry to industry and project to project.

02 How detailed must the project requirements be?

It is difficult to say it in general since every project is unique in its own sense. However, more detailed project requirements give a clear idea to every stakeholder involved in the execution of the project and hence, lend more credibility to it. Furthermore, more details lead to a clear definition of other aspects of the project, such as timelines, costs, human efforts required, technologies needed, and many others.

Seven tactics to boost Average Order Value (AOV) for your eCommerce store

09 July 2021
15:16

‘A boost in sales’ is what every e-commerce store intends to achieve. There are many ways to increase the sales for your store. One is to find more number of customers that purchase your products and increase the overall sales. Another tactic is to increase the basket size of existing customers, which, again, will lead to higher sales volume.

Increasing the basket size means increasing your earnings per customer order. Therefore, even if the number of customers remains the same, you can increase your sales with an increase in the average order value (AOV). Average order value is defined as the average value of each order a customer places at your e-commerce store. The formula for AOV is Total Revenue divided by Total Number of Orders.

For example, if you earn USD10,000.0 in sales from 100 orders, the AOV is 100; however, if the number of orders reduces to 50, then AOV is 200. That means you are deriving more value from 50 customers in the second case. On the other hand, in the first case, if you have less than 100 customers, you need to invest in customer acquisition to achieve sales of USD10,000.0.

Your best approach to achieving eCommerce success is

Why does AOV matter to an eCommerce store?

AOV matters to an eCommerce store because of the following reasons:

Average order value is a metric to gauge your customers’ purchasing behavior. If one customer purchases more than two customers combined, then your AOV increases. It gives you an insight into whether a particular customer purchases more in one order or has more orders of less value.

Insights on average order value open the door to knowing the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns. A higher return on investment from a marketing campaign results in higher AOV. You will also be required to invest less in acquiring more customers but harness more from efforts in increasing the sales volume from existing customers.

With a higher average order value, your inventory outflow is high. This is good for your e-commerce store, as inventory is not piled up and is churned off easily to avoid the assembly of expired products in the inventory.

The average order value metric gives a glimpse of the effectiveness of your pricing strategy. Suppose you increase or decrease a product’s price, and you calculate the average order price for that product. Based on a rise or drop in AOV, you can gauge whether your pricing strategy is working or has failed.

How do I increase AOV for my eCommerce store?

Marketers know that a high AOV is good for their eCommerce stores. Hence, we list below the key strategies that you must use to increase the average order value at your store:

Use web design to highlight premium products

To improve the average order value for a customer, you want them to buy high-priced products that result in more money for you. In this case, the best strategy is to highlight such premium products on your website. Use the various techniques of color, keywords, placement on the webpage, and good testimonials to make the online shoppers focus on those products more.

Try upselling and cross-selling to increase AOV

When customers are buying online, you must give them reasons to spend more – reasons that are attractive enough to lead to a purchase. Specifically, you must upsell or cross-sell, and how do you do these?

For upselling, you display similar, higher-priced products to the main product being purchased and offer discounts if one of those products is bought in the current transaction.

For cross-selling, you offer suggestions of related products that add value to the main product and improve its usefulness.

Offer bundle deals

Another great tactic to lift your average order value is bundling products and selling them at a discount. You need to ensure that the discounted bundle you create must look interesting and of use to customers – create a deal that they feel will give more value to them. This bundle can be of related products or the same product when bought in more quantities or higher volumes.

Offer free shipping benefits for orders over a defined value

Free shipping is an attractive offer for any shopper. It is also a good tactic to increase the average order value. You must display this message when the customers have added items to their cart. This is the time when they will realize that just by adding a small value item, their shopping cart will reach a value, at which they will get free shipping.

Use loyalty programs to your advantage

Put in place loyalty programs through which customers get discounts or earn points for every purchase. To earn points and get more discounts, these customers become your repeat customers and order more quantities or volume to earn more points, which, in turn, results in higher average order value.

Display overall savings to customers

You must display the money a customer is saving by buying a larger quantity or higher volume of a product. They must not feel guilty about spending more; instead, they must feel like they are saving money by buying more quantities.

Offer payment plans for more expensive items

Customers find it very attractive if the eCommerce store offers them an option of paying in installments or Buy now, pay later. If such payment options are available, customers are ready to buy higher-priced products, which increase your average order value.

Final thoughts

Try some of these techniques to see your average order value rise. Thus, you can earn more without investing in new campaigns or new products, but just by using these tactics. If you wish to know more about such tactics or want help with implementing them, you can reach out to us – we are Technovisors. We are an IT consulting, data analytics, and digital marketing firm in Ahmedabad, India. We solve your business problems so that you focus on your growth strategies.

How do we help increase your eCommerce AOV?

We will study your business and products and understand the purchasing behavior of your customers. Based on these insights and market dynamics, we suggest the most appropriate strategies to improve your average order value. Our tactics to improve your eCommerce AOV will be based on global best practices, industry situations, and market conditions. We have an experienced set of people with the knowledge and expertise of guiding eCommerce companies to higher profits.

We are the KEY PARTNER to your eCommerce business.

FAQs

01 Will all these techniques work for my online snacks store?

Yes and no. It depends on your business type, your customers, their purchasing behavior, and many other factors. You can contact us, and we will discuss with you the necessary tactics for your business.

02 I am a newbie in the eCommerce business. Can I implement these strategies to increase my store’s average order value?

Yes, you can execute them. However, you must try and test these tactics for a specific time. If they do not work, reconsider them.

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The importance of creating Business Requirements Document before embarking on the project

May 20, 2022

Understanding “Business Requirements Document” Suppose an organization wants to develop a digital marketing strategy for its business. Now, this is a project, which will have many smaller objectives to achieve.

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A complete guide to digital marketing

08 April 2021
17:29

Yes, digital marketing is effective, and you need to understand that it is here to stay. Even in the current times when everyone is going digital, companies still have apprehensions about having a digital marketing strategy. Therefore, it is important to understand the Guide For Digital Marketing and its significance for your business growth and the impact it can bring by increasing your customers, improving your reputation, or elevating your revenues.

Guide For Digital Marketing

A digital marketing strategy is a plan for the business to achieve the defined marketing goals through several digital marketing channels. The senior management or the marketing leaders of a company determine the marketing goals in alignment with the company’s business objectives. Based on these marketing goals, the relevant decision-makers plan the blueprint to reach these goals using digital media, which is defined as a digital marketing strategy.

Differentiating digital marketing strategy from the digital marketing campaign

The decision-makers develop short-term actions or tactics to achieve the defined, short-term goals of the digital marketing strategy. For example, if the objective of your digital marketing strategy is to improve the traffic on your website, you might choose the action of writing high-quality and relevant blog articles, thereby attracting an audience to visit your website. Therefore, writing blog articles to attract an audience is your digital marketing campaign.

Significance of a digital marketing strategy

A digital marketing strategy driven by a Guide For Digital Marketing is important for your business for the following reasons:

A digital marketing strategy enables you to have a clear direction for the way you intend to achieve your business goals, whether it is more traffic, generating more leads, or developing loyal customer relationships.

A defined digital marketing approach lets you compete with other companies in the marketplace who may grab your digital audience if you do not do so.

Digital marketing enables you to know your audience better – what is their purchasing behavior, what are their expectations from you, how they intend to interact with you, what are they talking about you with their connections and many others.

With a comprehensive, clear digital marketing strategy, you can have better clarity on the key aspects that are working and strategies that need improvement; based on this, you can improve upon the not-so-working tactics and harness the successful ones fully.

Digital marketing strategy enables you to try different tactics to test and identify the ones that work for your business in achieving the relevant defined goals.

Digital marketing proposition facilitates the use of multiple online channels or a combination of them, each with their own merits to work with the channels that give you the best results.

You can use a well-crafted digital marketing strategy to communicate with your customers on different mediums in different ways and track their activities to understand their reactions and preferences.

Types of digital marketing strategy

While you may have heard about most of these digital marketing techniques, the critical part is to select the most appropriate technique for your business need. Not all strategies work for all different marketing goals for different industry domains. It is ‘YOU’ who has to understand the business needs, resources available for marketing, and competitive scenario, and then decide the best digital marketing strategy. We enumerate few strategies for you that can help you compete with other players in your industry of operations:

SEO

Search engine optimization is the technique of increasing the website traffic from search engines by showing your website among the top results in the search for specific and relevant keywords.

SEM

Search engine marketing is an internet marketing approach for promoting your website by using paid advertising to improve your visibility in search engine results pages.

SMM

Social media marketing is a digital marketing technique that uses various social media websites and platforms to promote companies and their products and services.

Website design and development

Website design means the designing of the website that is displayed on the internet, while web development refers to the functionality of the designed website. A responsive, visually appealing, comprehensive, relevant, and high-speed website works as an effective digital marketing strategy for your business to drive traffic and generate leads.

Email marketing

Email marketing is a digital marketing strategy under which you can send commercial messages to potential or existing customers to advertise your products or services, solicit sales, or request business.

Content marketing

Content marketing is a digital marketing approach through which marketers create, publish, and distribute relevant and valuable content for their online audience.

Video marketing

Video marketing is a digital marketing technique under which marketers create, curate, and publish videos to promote products and services to the targeted audience.

Affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing is a digital marketing strategy under which affiliates market another company’s products or services and earn a commission in exchange.

ASO marketing

App Store Optimization marketing is a type of digital marketing strategy that improves an app or game’s visibility or increases its downloads in an app store.

ORM

Online reputation management is a digital marketing approach to maintain a good reputation of a business in the customers’ minds through influencing, controlling, or concealing.

Final thoughts

Now, if you have understood the importance of digital marketing for your business growth, select the right approach to get to your goals. You can also approach a digital marketing services provider who can help you with the right digital marketing strategy and tactics to achieve the desired goals.

Technovisors

Technovisors is a leading full-service digital marketing agency excelling in developing and implementing the right digital marketing strategy for you. We design customized, results-driven, and business-specific digital marketing campaigns to achieve your unique goals. Whether you are looking to generate more traffic, increase revenues, improve your customers’ awareness, raise your sales, or develop a strong base of loyal customers – digital marketing is the answer, and we make it possible for you.

Grab the opportunity to achieve your marketing goals

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The importance of creating Business Requirements Document before embarking on the project

May 20, 2022

Understanding “Business Requirements Document” Suppose an organization wants to develop a digital marketing strategy for its business. Now, this is a project, which will have many smaller objectives to achieve.

Add a comment

Importance of EOI, RFI, RFP/RFQ in software selection

08 April 2021
17:17

Software Selection

IT acquisition, be it hardware or software selection, is not an easy process.

The procurement department in companies employs a robust procurement management system to facilitate a streamlined IT acquisition flow. In this article, we will look at the importance of EOI, RFI, RFP/RFQ in the software selection process.

Selecting the right IT vendor requires analysis of software vendors on multiple parameters. You must compare the software features with your requirements, quality of their potential deliverables, client references, pricing, reputation in the market, and many other factors. It is a long process and requires the procurement team to request the vendors for information, proposal, and quotation as and when the need arises in the procurement process flow.

Let’s delve deeper into understanding the Expression of Interest (EOI), Request for Information (RFI), Request for Proposal (RFP), and Request for Quotation (RFQ). We provide you the meaning of these documents, the basic content of each document, and the importance of each in the procurement process.

Expression of Interest (EOI)

While making an IT acquisition, the buyer floats a letter asking prospective vendors to submit their expression of interest (EOI) in supplying the IT solution as per the specifications provided therein. The vendors respond to it and provide the necessary information as to their IT solution, including marketing collaterals, product features, and technical documents.

The procurement department goes through the vendor responses and selects a few based on their merits. Through EOI, the company can develop a database of possible vendors in the market who provide solutions that address its requirements.

Request for Information (RFI)

RFI generally follows EOI, and sometimes when solution vendors are already known, the process starts with RFI.

RFI is a preliminary document used by companies for the IT acquisition to provide all the details on their business need to expect relevant responses from expert vendors present in the market. It is related more to finding as many details about the several solutions available in the market to address their business needs. The company must present all the data and information about its various challenges and expects the vendors to provide information about their offerings, which can resolve the challenges of the company.

RFI seeks information on supplier’s IT solutions, features and functionality, pricing, markets served, customer references, etc.

Request for Proposal (RFP)

RFP generally follows RFI and is more specific. It is a document used in the bidding process to obtain business proposals from potential IT vendors for procuring specific hardware, software, or service. It is a more precise document talking about the business objectives of the project or function, a clear-cut definition of the requirements for the project, and expectations from the vendors.

The key objective of RFP is to give clarity to the vendors on the company’s exact requirements so that vendors’ responses are contextual, valid to the need, relevant, and as per the company’s expectations. RFP seeks information on specific items, performance metrics, instructions of use, due date, technical capabilities, point of contact, and how the solution addresses the business need.

The buyer also specifies the selection criteria, scoring mechanism, and other requirements of the proposal in the RFP document.

The vendor responses to RFP are then evaluated functionally, technically, and economically, and the best possible option is chosen.

Request for Quotation (RFQ)

RFQ is a more detailed document specifying the exact IT requirements of the company. The company is fully aware of its problem and the solution that can address the issue; it is only looking for a vendor who can provide the solution within the cost and deadlines. In RFQ, the vendor is expected to respond to the exact requirement of the company and not suggest creative solutions.

To select the most suitable vendor for your business, it is essential to ask the right questions. RFIs, RFPs, and RFQs are those tools used to ask the right questions for procurement to on-board the right vendor for addressing the business need. These tools give the company an upper hand in conducting a fair and equally weighted assessment procedure to evaluate the IT offerings of all vendors based on several parameters. With these tools in hand, the company can achieve efficient IT procurement, standardization, cost savings, and risk moderation.

Differences between RFI, RFP, and RFQ

We provide a comparison between requests for information, proposal, and quotation as follows:

In the case of RFI, you are not sure of the solution that can solve your problem; in the case of RFP, you evaluate and compare the multiple IT solutions available to you based on many factors; while in the case of RFQ, you compare the vendors on their costing and cost structure.

The questions asked in RFI are general questions for education and information while the questions asked in RFP are specific to the vendor’s offerings and business; on the other hand, the questions asked in RFQ are related to the costing of the solution.

While RFI is casually structured, RFP is more formal and direct, and RFQ is organized and prescriptive.

Companies use RFI in the early stages of buying or when the project requirements are not clear; they use RFP when they have defined needs and are in the stage of transition from exploration to commitment; while they use RFQ when they have precise requirements and are committed to the purchase.

The response to RFI is how a vendor will cater to your business need; response to RFP is the strengths and merits of the vendor’s solution compared to others, while the response to RFQ is the pricing of the solution for the business need.

To select the most suitable vendor for your business, it is essential to ask the right questions. RFIs, RFPs, and RFQs are those tools used to ask the right questions for procurement to on-board the right vendor for addressing the business need. These tools give the company an upper hand in conducting a fair and equally weighted assessment procedure to evaluate the IT offerings of all vendors based on several parameters. With these tools in hand, the company can achieve efficient IT procurement, standardization, cost savings, and risk moderation.

Technovisors

We provide IT consulting services to streamline your software selection process. We help you with selecting the right tool for your procurement process and help you frame it as per your need. Our professionals have the required relevant expertise in creating such documents, analysing the responses to them, and helping you select the right vendor for your business need.

Looking to acquire an IT solution?

Project stakeholders: Understanding the types, importance, and identification process

June 2, 2022

Defining Project stakeholders By the word itself, we understand it means ‘people who hold a stake’. So, project stakeholders include all those people who hold a stake in a project.

Agile requirements modeling: Importance, values, principles, and methodologies

May 26, 2022

Agile requirements modeling In the traditional method of requirements management, the project team defines the requirements. Developers follow the requirements document and make the software. Testers test the software against

The importance of creating Business Requirements Document before embarking on the project

May 20, 2022

Understanding “Business Requirements Document” Suppose an organization wants to develop a digital marketing strategy for its business. Now, this is a project, which will have many smaller objectives to achieve.