Web Monkeys or Web Designers? - Technical skills for e-commerce

📄 Project Abstract

This project investigates the skills and technologies used for e-commerce within a single large IT organisation. We took two teams within a single division of IBM that were heavily involved in ecommerce work and attempted to distinguish between the roles of the computer scientist and the nonspecialist with regard to Web development. Our investigation led us to analyse three key areas: role identification, evolution of e-commerce skills & technologies and work organisation & job design. Findings suggest that while separate roles do exist, a significant degree of technical skills remain within the non-specialist group. This led us to define a potential third role whose skills cross the boundaries of both groups. We propose that while the specialist is technically capable of performing the non-specialist's role, it is arguable that the outputs produced would not have the same level of usability due to the specialist's focus on functionality. We also propose the extinction of the non-speci...