Webinar: E-Commerce search journey (Build vs. Buy)
Eugene Kovshilovsky, Senior Vice President of Software engineering, has been through the cycle of creating eCommerce search technology several times for some very prestigious enterprises. These include Go Daddy and now CarParts.com. In the Webinar, Eugene answers the question: “When Tech Leaders are solving a business problem with a technology solution, is it better to build it or buy it?”
Eugene shares his insights into how he tackled some major challenges to improve US Auto Parts complex eCommerce Search customer experience to find the right part (on the front end) while managing millions of SKUs on the backend.
“Don’t be afraid to make mistakes and choosing the wrong path, but the right path for the right time. You may decide that you want to build something because you think that it’s the right approach, and then as the industry or your market matures, you may decide that you want to swap it out for something more robust.”
Key points covered in the Webinar are:
- How to overcome the difficulty of building complex search engines for eCommerce sites?
- Why it’s important to get people on board with previous experience?
- Do you build it from scratch or buy it?
TLDR: straight to the point (quick links)
We all live busy lives, and sometimes a long webinar is too much of a time-footprint for our busy schedules. So to help you get to the bit you’re more interested in, use our table of contents below. Quick links to help you get straight to the point.
2. Greetings
3. About Eugene
4. Value of globally distributed teams
5. Auto parts search challenges
6. We do not learn from our experiences…
7. Not so unique after all (job search vs. parts Search)
8. Search Engine Needs
9. Tech requirements for search engine
10. What goes into the decision (build vs. buy)
11. Buy Analysis
13. Build Analysis
14. ‘Build vs Buy’ Poll from the audience
15. Question 1: Machine learning in search
16. Questions 2: How much has technology played an integral part in the success of the organization?
17. Questions 3: How much does your choices and solutions around the search engine is a competitive advantage and how do you measure that?
18. Question 4: What would be your gem of advice?
19. Thanks and goodbyes
20. Inspirational final words for Tech leaders
“One of my strong beliefs is following the Sun, and having globally distributed software engineering teams. For me, that’s really important because you get to have a little bit more flexibility in culture, allowing for very diverse and different thinking. It also allows you to troubleshoot and support your users throughout the globe. Many [eCommerce sites] have users in any and every continent and country. So having a globally distributed team allows for having somebody that is not just picking up the phone and answering you as a tech-support person, but going a step further and providing you [with] a world-class engineer who will solve your problems right there and then.”