CommerceNext’s newest qualitative research report focuses on helping the ecommerce community evaluate and improve upon their digital commerce team and organizational structures in this defining digital era.
In this research, we asked retailers:
- How does ecommerce fit into and operate within a larger retail organization—in the past, present, and future?
- Which roles are the most crucial to the digital organization?
- What are the current KPIs most critical to assessing digital performance?
For this qualitative study, we partnered with The Commerce Experience Collective (CommX) to conduct more than a dozen interviews with executives across a range of retailers and brands to understand the structure, challenges and assessment metrics of today’s digital retail organization.
Download the free report here.
Summary of Findings
One of the major takeaways from the research is that the digital commerce team and its reporting structures are clear and working, but ownership remains complex. Today’s team can be built many different ways; you might have a CMO or SVP heading the ecommerce business with ownership varying by function and responsibility. Site Merchandising and UX/UI were among the most consistent reported areas of direct ownership.
While there is a place for direct ownership, no ecommerce leader is successful without strong collaboration among marketing, ecommerce and IT leaders. But one thing remains a mystery: how does an organization build and maintain this digital talent?
Retailers are experiencing ongoing organizational challenges and shared some of their recruitment strategies. Nearly every ecommerce leader interviewed is seeking data scientists/analysts and CRM/loyalty experts. With these roles in high demand, there is no secret to attracting talent, but retailers are utilizing a few newer approaches like: internship programs that cultivate young talent into full-time employees; looking for remote hires and offering home office setup stipends; and, increased employee referral bonuses.
Read the full report to get a deeper insight into how retailers are understanding today’s digital commerce team.
If you’re interested in learning more about leadership and organizational structure, check out our CommerceNext 2022 panel on Digital Leadership.
