Lesson 5	Roles and stages of e-business evolution
Objective	Identify an organization’s current maturity stage and outline evidence-based steps to progress to the next stage.

Stages of e-Business Evolution (Modern Maturity Model)

E-business maturity grows along two axes: customer adoption and technology capability. This lesson reframes a classic six-stage model into today’s context—omnichannel journeys, first-party data, privacy, cloud platforms, and AI-assisted operations. Use it as a diagnostic to determine where your organization is now and how to advance with the least friction.

Six stages of e-business maturity from Static presence to Contextual management with feedback loops across data and operations — Six-stage maturity: *Static → Interact → Transact → Enact → Relationship → Context*. Each stage adds capabilities rather than replacing prior ones.

The Six Stages (2025 framing)

1) Static (Presence)

What it looks like: Brochure-style pages, basic brand/info, FAQs.
Signals: Few conversions; minimal instrumentation; accessibility gaps.
Next moves: Add GA4 events/goals, sitemap & schema.org, performance/accessibility fixes.

2) Interact (Feedback & Discovery)

What it looks like: Search, filters, contact forms, basic personalization cues.
Signals: On-site search used; users compare products/content.
Next moves: Introduce consented first-party data capture, site search analytics, A/B testing.

3) Transact (Commerce & Conversion)

What it looks like: Checkout/payments, bookings, subscriptions, gated downloads.
Signals: Cart/checkout funnels; fraud/risk control; PCI-aware tokenization.
Next moves: Optimize conversion (address, shipping, returns), add server-side tagging, expand payment options.

4) Enact (Process Integration)

What it looks like: Order orchestration, inventory sync, logistics/ERP/CRM integration.
Signals: iPaaS/workflows, event streams, SLAs across teams/suppliers.
Next moves: Standardize APIs/contracts, implement retries/DLQs, observability (tracing, SLOs).

5) Relationship Management (Lifecycle Marketing)

What it looks like: Cohort messaging, loyalty, service experiences across channels.
Signals: CLV/retention tracked; preference center; deliverability health.
Next moves: CDP or equivalent; consented profiles; journey orchestration; attribution modeled.

6) Context Management (Personalization & Decisioning)

What it looks like: Real-time recommendations, audience-aware content, dynamic pricing/merchandising.
Signals: Feature stores, privacy-safe IDs, experimentation baked into releases.
Next moves: Governance for data/AI; guardrails, model monitoring, and rollback strategies.

How to Locate Your Current Stage

Baseline metrics: Identify your primary conversion(s), top paths, and friction points (GA4, logs, support tickets).
Inventory capabilities: Payments, fulfillment, customer data, integrations, experimentation, accessibility, performance.
Gap analysis: Compare your stack and KPIs against the stage checklists above.
Roadmap one stage ahead: Move incrementally; add the smallest capability that unlocks the next measurable win.

Stage-by-Stage Upgrade Playbook

Static → Interact: Site search analytics, structured data, consent banner, performance & WCAG 2.2 fixes.
Interact → Transact: Payment gateway + tax/shipping, clear returns, trust badges, cart recovery, SSR/edge caching.
Transact → Enact: iPaaS/workflow engine, inventory sync, order events, SLAs/operational dashboards.
Enact → Relationship: CDP/ESP integration, preference center, lifecycle journeys, churn prediction alerts.
Relationship → Context: Real-time audiences, feature flags/experiments, policy-aware personalization, model governance.

Risks & Controls

Privacy & consent: Honor user choices; document purposes; minimize data scopes.
Security: TLS 1.3, HSTS, CSP; secret management; principle of least privilege.
Resilience: Idempotent APIs, retries with backoff, circuit breakers, DLQs.
Accessibility: Semantics, focus order, color contrast, keyboard support, media alternatives.
Performance: Core Web Vitals budgets; compress/optimize images; cache policies.

Deliverables for a Consulting Engagement

Maturity assessment (current stage + evidence).
1-stage roadmap with ROI, cost, and risk.
Capability checklist to operationalize and measure progress.

These stages are cumulative. Advancing forward should preserve earlier strengths while adding new capabilities—measured through clear KPIs.