E-Commerce and IT Solutions Outsourcing: Are They Putting You at Risk?
Running a business without outsourcing IT operations is nearly impossible. Custom software design development, APIs, analytics scripts, and website components can skyrocket your e-commerce business, but you must be mindful of data protection and governance issues.
E-commerce is not a task that can be completed once and then left alone.
Companies must concentrate on developing new products and building flawless e-commerce experiences to flourish due to shifting rules and regulations about correct compliance, changing customer tastes, and an increasingly competitive global marketplace.
Let’s examine how these applications work and how to benefit from them without endangering compliance or performance to understand more about the dynamics influencing the software industry and how they are altering how businesses sell software online.
Also Read: How Outsourcing can be a game-changer to upswing the SME industry in Finland?
Necessary, however messy?
Unified, smooth technological integration is the foundation for successful changes. The digital transformation of many businesses is established by the integration of several products from various vendors.
But as is frequently the case, there are future-proof shortcuts involved in this integration if you can hire ecommerce developer.
Learn More: The Biggest Outsourcing Lessons of the Past 11 Years
The value and efficacy of corporate infrastructure components can be restricted and reduced when they operate independently. The misalignment of various telemetry data, procedures, and alarms can result from data slipping through the cracks of dissimilar security systems, leading to visibility and security breaches.
This may lead to expensive mistakes, visibility blindness, delays in the mitigation process, and complexity.
Disorganization frequently results from digital transformation shortcuts.
You can shape a puzzle piece to fit by cutting the corners, but this won’t produce a complete or linked image. You won’t get the outcomes you want from a jigsaw of ineffectively interconnected or non-communicating technologies.
What should be “cut” instead are vendor excess and product sprawl, which contribute to difficult and inefficient management.
Outsourcing and offshoring technologies are incorporated into a website with scripts or pixels to automate features that would otherwise take a long time to design or link to external services like ad networks. Over 94% of websites, according to HTTP Archive, rely on at least one third-party resource, with the average website using 21 on mobile and 23 on desktop.
Learn More: How Automation Can Help You Scale Your Business
In e-commerce, where every click and conversion has a monetary value, these techniques are commonly used for:
• Data analytics. Google Analytics, for example, uses scripts to track visitor activities and deliver statistics and insights.
• API-powered components. Building blocks that automate a portion of the buying process, such as Stripe, which is widely used as a payment gateway.
• Ad technology. Scripts, such as those given by Google or Facebook, are used to display targeted advertising, handle affiliate marketing, or generate remarketing lists.
• Tools for personalization and conversion improvement. Data and machine learning are used by software to dynamically change content, product suggestions, and promotional offers.
Technologies served by offshore IT companies can help you save time, enhance the user experience, and increase income. However, if they get increasingly numerous and opaque, they might endanger your firm.
Sharing The Risks To Reputation And Compliance
Numerous services provided by third parties gather personally identifiable information (PII). This might be very unimportant information, like the visitor’s gender, or extremely private data, like their credit card information. The developer may have done this on purpose or by error.
Some services don’t manage this data in a secure manner. Data sent in an unencrypted format is more susceptible to being intercepted by nefarious parties. The e-commerce site will be liable for any PII leakage that results from this, especially in terms of compliance.
Additionally, you could be concerned about who owns the intellectual property rights to the designs, systems, and content that were produced by the IT outstaffing company.
You may still be accountable even if a third party is collecting the data:
• Respect for privacy laws. BJIT ensures that a data processing agreement (DPA) is in place with outsourcing IT operations that process personal data on its behalf. This is required by both the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). Businesses must also react to data subject access requests (DSARs), which may entail asking for data deletion or informing consumers that third parties may have their data stored. Violations are punishable by severe penalties.
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• The potential reputational damage of a data leak. Clients are less concerned about the specifics of how JavaScript caused the exposure of their personal data. Instead, they hold the website accountable. Sales might suffer, and your brand may suffer long-term consequences if you lose the confidence of your customers.
Scaling Up Issues — Visibility and Control Issues
Different third-party scripts frequently get installed and then forgotten as e-commerce enterprises develop over time. Several programs that may no longer be useful or relevant might operate in the background, causing the website to bloat. Several problems may result from this lack of sight and control:
• Efficiency. Performance problems can be caused by third-party scripts being loaded inefficiently. They might make the website take longer to load or use too many resources, which would decrease conversions.
• Governance. It’s easy to lose track of who needs what when your site is running hundreds of services. It can also add needless complexity and possible weaknesses, which makes it harder to recognize and fix issues.
• Complex dependencies involving several parties. There are frequently additional layers of external requirements hidden behind these third-party programs. To access ad inventory, for instance, an ad-tech script may transfer data to a fourth-party network, which then contacts a fifth party to execute a machine-learning algorithm. The risk exposure might increase as a result of the cascade effect; weaknesses or problems with downstream services may affect the entire functionality, security, and user experience of your website.
Three Steps to Reduce the Risk of Using Third-Party Scripts
1. Identify the services active on your website.
It’s critical to keep track of all the tools deployed on your website, the visitors exposed to each tool, and the locations where these tools are exchanging data with third (or fourth, or fifth, or sixth) parties. Utilize this inventory to periodically audit all third-party scripts and pixels active on your website and determine their unique function, dependencies, and the information they gather.
2. Recognize which third-party services are gathering PII and weigh the dangers.
Consider the kind of data being gathered, how it will be communicated and kept, and whether the vendor has a track record of security problems or data breaches. Prioritize your efforts in the areas that pose the most risk after considering the possible effects on your consumers and business if that data were exposed.
3. Fix the issue with the seller or evict them.
Work with security or privacy problems after identifying and evaluating the risks related to each third-party service. This might entail revising DPAs, putting in place additional security measures, or altering the way the service gathers or uses data. Consider removing the vendor’s service from your website if they are unable or unwilling to address the hazards that have been found.
We, at BJIT, secure customers’ data, adhere to rules, and reduce the possible effects of data breaches on your brand’s reputation and sales by maintaining control, visibility, and knowledge over the technologies incorporated into your website.
Our successful technology consolidation has the following advantages:
• Lower ongoing maintenance and vendor management expenses.
• Lower the threat to security.
• Simplify security operations to provide quicker time to resolution and improved decision-making.
• Lessen the requirement for specialist personnel acquisition to control product complexity.
• Increase the capabilities of resources while reducing vendor and function overlap.
• Save time and effort sorting through various telemetry data and warnings, as well as time spent patching and upgrading several products.
How Does BJIT Ensure the Success of the Seamless Integration Process?
• Establish success criteria.
We document various stakeholders’ business requirements and priorities and aid in ensuring their priorities are satisfied. Privileged access management (PAM), for example, will affect departments outside of IT (such as HR), whereas endpoint security will affect all users. Whatever the priority, each stakeholder’s requirements will be incorporated into the vendor’s choice.
• Give functional abilities first priority.
It’s crucial to deploy each product in accordance with your current security requirements and risk assessment. Your business-critical assets are thus identified and categorized based on risk, impact, and cost by our cybersecurity experts. We find out the potential threats to such assets and the potential effects on the business as operational, financial, regulatory, partner and customer-related risk consequences are possible.
Bottom Line
The journey of a company toward effective digital transformation should be a deliberate one that does not rashly take shortcuts to save money. It should lead from a fragile patchwork of numerous bits to a seamless security blanket of robust protection, establishing a consolidated, unified infrastructure fabric.
Vendor consolidation execution at BJIT guarantees that our business outsourcing solutions led by IT meet the requirements while reducing potential issues. Consolidation involves well-stated goals and assessment criteria for both the technology and the vendor, with thorough contact and coordination with all stakeholders, as well as continual contact with the vendor.
