In the last few years, partially boosted by the COVID pandemic, online delivery in Thailand has grown significantly, and will continue to do so in the coming years. Competition is indeed fierce in the ecommerce domain.
But how do the IT systems that support this business have adapted to this rapid expansion?
Let's look at it from a consumer perspective, as you may have experience this yourself. When you order online (mobile apps or web from a convenient store), a frequent and recurrent issue is that some items are actually not available for delivery.
A few minutes later after placing your order, you then get a call from customer support (or the store), to inform you that items X and Y are out of stock, at this particular location. This happens a LOT.
They may then propose you a different items (different SKU), or just tell you "No Have". And on top of that, if you had discount based on total purchase value, you may lose the promotion in the process. Nice experience, NOT.
So as a consultant, I'm always curious to understand how this can actually happen.
Why does the apps let you make an order if the items is not available? Why?
Could it be that the stock information is not updated in real time, maybe only sync every 15, 30 or 60 minutes?
We are in 2023, why is this information not realtime?
Technical Debt is a likely answer for this. The underlying system have not been updated/modified to enable this.
Why is the apps then not updated to address this?
[ ] Product owner not aware of this issue?
[ ] Not a priority for the organization (Known issue)
[ ] No capacity / capability to develop a solution
[ ] All of the above
The product owner of the ordering apps is certainly aware of this issue, as it leads to many calls on the call center, as well as poor customer satisfaction.
The frustration experienced by the customer should be a priority by the organization.
The likely cause of the persistence of this issue, is an IT organization that cannot deliver a solution fast enough.
In the age of Cloud first, Digital Transformation, Agile/Devops, High Performance Team, etc ... all the tools are there.
If this sounds familiar to you, and are ready to do something about it in your organization, call for an open discussion on how we can support you.
