A Customer Analysis-Based Methodology for Improving Web Business Systems

Abstract

The Web has enabled many companies to create new business from individual customers in a variety of forms, as well as to expand their traditional contact points with them into virtual workplaces dramatically. For the success of customer-oriented businesses on the Web, it is necessary to make a continuous effort to adapt Web business systems to ever-changing customers’ needs. For this challenge, this chapter proposes a customer analysis-based improvement methodology (CAIM) to help evolve customer-oriented Web business systems; this methodology employs scenario-based and object-oriented approaches. The methodology consists of five phases: customer analysis, value analysis, Web design, implementation design, and construction. Scenarios are used to analyze customers’ needs in a natural fashion. A real-life community Web site is illustrated to demonstrate the usefulness of the methodology.