CASE #3

Your company has been well established in a physical location or locations, but has not as yet established a web presence.  You feel an urgency to do something, yet you are aware of the well-documented problems with many e-commerce sites and solutions right now.  And you don't want to make those same mistakes.....

Most of the solution providers you'll talk to want to sell you web design services, perhaps be your ISP, and will show you lots of attractive web sites they designed.  Most of them will also have opened their door for business within the last five years, and may  lack the overall data modeling experience to properly design a  commerce or other internet site that meets your particular business requirments.  They will also have difficulty delivering what you expect, since you will be speaking Business English, and they will be speaking Computer Terminology, two different languages!
 

An experienced, well established consulting firm with a heavy background in data modeling, business logic flow, and the design of numerous turn-key business systems should be brought in to assess  the situation.  Ideally the firm would identify the business objectives, establish Business Rules that govern the project, work with the  customer to establish specifications, help to assess possible bidders on the job, then continue in a management role to oversee the web contractor, acting as a liason between the computer world and the business world as your advocate.  Expertise would be brought to bear as needed to  handle whatever design or mangerial/supervisory role is required.