An ebusiness idea can come from an existing business - moving it to online selling, or a new business idea that is related to an existing business or completely new and perhaps unique business idea.

The first stage of development should be a business plan. This can be difficult to do for new ebusinesses but the general principles of business planning still apply - it may be that you have to make more broad assumptions about market sizes, sales forecasts and prices. In general it pays to be cautious with forecasts to provide a good margin of safety.

When considering the inputs to your business plan your need to answer a number of key questions;

Is there a market for my product/service?
ebusiness factors to consider here include;

1. ebusiness scale Will the business offer town, county, country or international sales. You product/service will usually dictate the scale of the business which will, in turn, influence the promotional strategy - there is no point in encouraging International visitors if you cannot service their requests.

2. Define your product/service. The Internet is a great place to build a business but it is important to understand that commodity products are not a good basis for business. Internet users will quickly browse across sites for the cheapest offer and sustainable businesses are difficult to achieve. Any successful ebusiness must generate added value to its products through service levels, additional services, after sales services etc. Even unique ideas have to include added value to protect against rapid followers who will move into the market behind you.

3. Customer demand. You may have some experience already of selling the product/service conventionally, do you know if your existing customers would buy on-line. Might they feel they are missing personal contact? What benefits are there from buying on-line? Will delivery times be fast and cost effective enough to win customers. How will you overcome resistance to online credit card usage? Will you offer other forms of purchase?

4. Unique Concept?If the business is brand new with no market data you will need to test the concept with friends and relatives - be cautious here to not give your idea away!

5. Competition. Check the Internet for similar offerings. Compare prices, check value adding

6. Existing business impact. An important consideration for a business translating to on-line selling is impact on existing business. How much volume will move from legacy to new venture, what impact on revenue/costs might this have? This is difficult to forecast as there should be some realignment of businesses in the plan.

7. Development costs. An ebusiness development can cost anywhere from a few hundred pounds to several hundred thousand pounds! You will need to devise a market introduction plan that balances the cost of development against the risks of unknown markets. one technique is to build a "proof of concept" model. this is a functional ebusiness service but with a reduce product set and limited back-office automation. This product can be test marketed with a controlled audience (for instance existing customers) to prove the system and tune the services and user interface. This approach spreads development costs - initial pilot product, tuning and product loading, ongoing support and enhancement. You should identify a suitable ebusiness/ecommerce developer who will be able to give you broad development costs.
   !Obtain signed confidentiality agreements before you discuss your ideas with third parties!

Having assembled these basic facts you should develop your business plan.

For a guide to business planning click here

For a guide to starting a business click here

Implementation

Assuming that you have an acceptable Business Plan and necessary investment funds you are now ready to start the development of your ebusiness.

Again there are several ebusiness specific issues to consider;

1. Web Service development(1). If your are developing a bespoke service then ideally select your developer based on recommendation of demonstrable success. You should expect to work closely with the Web Service developers, transferring your vision and requirements into their plans. development contracts should be fixed price with delivery milestones and target completion dates agreed.

2. Web Service development(2). Rather than develop a bespoke ebusiness service you may be able to use one of the many "shop creation" packages. These packages are ideal for catalog type services - lists of products that the visitor browses and selects. Typically the packages offer a simple user interface, enabling staff without web development skills to create and edit catalog entries, prices etc. If you go ahead with a shop creation package then you will need to sort out your product catalog, generate images and suitable (accurate and concise) product descriptions. This preparation work is essential and key to the effectiveness of your ebusiness.

3. Domain name. Often a key consideration in an ebusiness development. It is important not to divulge a required name to anyone before registering - be wary of any Internet service offering to provide name checks for you as these are sometimes monitored. The easiest way to check a name is to try and access it via browser - "www.myrequiredname.com". This doesn't prove that the name is not held by someone, just that it does not have a web service address but it is a good initial (and private) filter. When you are ready to register your name go to www.netbenefit.uk to register a domain in the uk (this can be .uk, .org,.com etc). Once you have registered you domain name it cannot be taken by anyone else.

4. ISP You will need to identify an ISP to host your service. The ISP might be the same organisation that supplied the shop creation package or a separate organisation. The factors to consider in selecting an ISP include rates for Web Hosting, cost of additional disk space, Email accounts, site support services, reputation (ask for reference customers). When you have selected your ISP you can authorise relocation of your domain name to an ISP network address (which is where your web service will run).

5. Email If you are not already using Email make sure to order mailboxes from your ISP and allocate these to key staff and functions. Allow for "sales, support and administrator" mailboxes for the ebusiness operation. Once email addresses have been allocated get the relevant users onto email and start using it for internal communications, building skills while the service development proceeds. Also arrange for email and domain names to be added to letter heads, business cards, invoices etc.

6. Payment Services If your plan to sell online then you will need to process credit cards and other forms of payment. It is not worth trying to build such systems yourself when several specialist suppliers offer complete payment packages. If you use a shop creation package you may find that they offer an integrated payment handling systems otherwise you can choose a service from the many available.
   See here for details of payment handling services.

7. Testing As the Web service develops you must invest time in testing the service. It will usually be accessible via a private Internet address at this stage so testing can take place over the internet. It is essential that business skilled users test the service to make sure that product descriptions, options and prices are correct. Any error on your Web service can have very serious repercussions so - "right first time" is the objective.
   Test out backoffice procedures by entering dummy orders online and progressing the orders through the system to despatch. Make sure staff understand the new processes and the importance of response times. Test the service statistics, systems management facilities (for making changes to catalogs, prices and any other content).

8. Launch. Prior to launch the Service should be established on its target server and accessible by domain address. At this stage final system testing can take place and backoffice processes given a final check. At this stage, when the service is accessible via its "proper address" the service can be registered with Search Engines. Also press releases can be issued to local/national newspapers, trade publications and other relevant vehices.