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- Multiple Geographies
- Independent Brands
- Multiple Market Segments
- Product Divisions
- Large Enterprise Procurement
- Common Characteristics of Multiple Site Scenarios
- Summary
This chapter is from the book
Common Characteristics of Multiple Site Scenarios
We described some possible scenarios that lead to the need for multiple sites. Each company is unique in its approach to business and in its business processes. Nevertheless, we have collected here enough examples to see several similarities among the characteristics of multisite scenarios:
- Each site must have full control and manageability, the same as if it were the only site of the business. This means that the company, or the division of the company, needs to assign operators or administrators who are responsible for managing the content on the site, such as products or advertising content. The administrators must also manage orders or even provide assistance to customers who use the sites.
- The business needs the capability to quickly and cheaply create new sites. This is important due to possible acquisitions of additional companies that need to have their own sites, but it can also be necessary due to market realities, where a new site is necessary for a geographic location or for a particular segment of customers.
- The business needs the capability to easily shut down sites, temporarily or permanently. Temporary shutdowns are necessary in cases of technical problems, but also individual sites might need to be temporarily taken down for maintenance. Sites can also be shut down permanently, for example, due to company restructuring where divisions are merged or sold.
- The business needs the capability to easily make changes to all the sites or only some sites. For example, a product might need to be introduced in only one country, or an advertising campaign might be relevant to only one customer audience. Similarly, the company might want to change the look and feel of the site of one of the brands, while the other brands remain unchanged.
- It is implicitly expected by the business that all sites operate equally well, in terms of having fast performance even at peak times, having good security, and being reliable.