Ecommerce Manager, Product Manager, or both?

Victor

Structuring a new team for an eCommerce endeavour can be extremely difficult for a company. Up-skilling current employees (hopefully not just "giving the position to the youngest team member"!) and/or hiring external people with a complete different mindset can be cumbersome… Change management is always a touchy subject!

But what approach should the business go: for an "eCommerce manager" owning the full P&L of this channel or a more techie role being a "Product Manager" (or Product Owner if you are following SCRUM methodologies)? One is more a commercial role while the other is more IT, but definitely both skillsets complement each other and are needed by an organisation. I'd say ideally you would have a head count for each, maybe with the Commercial person leading the team and being accountable for the performance of the channel (by revenue generated by itself but also in relation with other stakeholders it serves), while the Product Manager focuses on ensuring the platform covers what the business asks for.

What do you think? Any best practice you can share?