What does a platform selection consultant do?

Your eCommerce platform drives sales performance, customer experience, internal efficiency, and every connection across your tech stack, ERP, CRM, and finance. As growth accelerates, that engine can start to sputter. New requirements expose constraints.

Migrating to a new platform is a strategic pivot that defines your operational model for, let’s say, the next 5 years. It is a financial, operational, and organisational commitment. The decision needs structure, clarity and an unbiased opinion. That is where a consultant comes in.

When you need outside help

I have seen businesses bring in a consultant when they have momentum for change but no clear way forward. Often, the internal team is stuck in debate or overwhelmed by the sheer number of options. At the time of writing this, I have 104 B2B eCommerce platforms on my list; the figure keeps growing.

Budgets and goals drift apart. Every decision affects another, and in my experience of working with teams, misalignment shows up quickly.

I have sat in rooms where companies spent £100,000 on a platform because the IT lead loved the architecture, only for the marketing team to discover they could not update a single category description without a developer.

A consultant leads the process, challenges assumptions, and brings the clarity needed to stop making expensive guesses. They bring experience of repeating this process over and over, something that hopefully you have not done!

What a platform selection consultant actually does

A platform selection consultant supports one of the most commercially important decisions a business will make: choosing the right B2B eCommerce platform.

They help you understand how your business really operates and to guide a structured, objective decision. The value lies in getting stakeholders on the same page, creating clarity, and basing decisions on business needs rather than vendor influence. I call this alignment. You may, or may not be surprised, how many times an MD, Finance Director and Head of Sales have disagreed on even their own company vision when I ask them whilst they are all sat in a room together.

Starting with the right question

Projects often begin with a search for “the best” platform. I flip that. First, we define what “best” means for your business: what you need to achieve, what problems must be solved, and what success looks like. That stops assumptions from undermining the outcome and keeps teams focused on solving business problems instead of buying tools.

• What problem are we solving?
• If not a problem, what is our purpose?
• How will we know when we’ve achieved it?

The core activities

I typically work through several activities to reach a decision:

Uncovering and validating business requirements
We don’t even talk about features at this point. In fact, if you do, you will find I squawk a rubber chicken in your face. It is about understanding your business processes, integration needs, and operational realities. We document what the platform must support and why it matters.

Running workshops to get teams on the same page
Stakeholder consensus is where projects succeed or fail. I run workshops that bring sales, operations, IT, and leadership together. We surface conflicts early and build shared understanding. This alignment is documented. Since the advent of AI the time taken to do this ROI’s even faster as LLMs will benefit from all of this context.

Building structured criteria for evaluating platforms
Instead of vague preferences, I create objective scoring systems. We define what “satisfied” means for each requirement and how to measure vendor responses against it. The SPIN APE® RFP process for technology selection uses a framework for scoring needs met, not features delivered.

Documenting findings and leading vendor conversations
Clear documentation keeps everyone on the same page. I help you manage the vendor engagement process, asking the right questions and cutting through sales pitches to understand genuine capability. A sounding board, somebody who does not have skin in the game to give a fresh perspective.

Scoring options based on real business value
Not all features matter equally. I help you weigh requirements by business impact so the final decision reflects what actually drives value for your operation.

Working alongside your team

I work alongside your team, not in isolation. I listen, challenge, guide, and bring frameworks that support faster, clearer decisions. I often stay involved beyond selection, giving strategic oversight during implementation so the decision translates into reality.

The SPIN APE® technology selection framework

I use the SPIN APE framework developed at Rixxo to bring order and logic to platform selection. It is a two-part approach that starts with your needs before looking at software. A separate guide walks through SPIN APE® in full; here is the shape.

Situation – What is happening in the business today? Where the business is, what is working, and what is creating friction.

Problem – What is getting in the way? Not symptoms, but root causes that prevent progress.

Impact – What happens if it is not fixed? Making the consequences clear: what breaks if nothing changes, what opportunities get missed.

Need – What needs to change. Defining the required capabilities based on outcomes.

Align – Get the team agreeing on direction. Everyone is working toward the same outcome with a shared understanding.

Propose – Invite vendors to map their tools to your needs. Have them demonstrate how they meet your specific requirements, not their standard pitch.

Evaluate – Score options by impact and confidence. Measure vendor responses against your criteria and weight them by business value.

This framework keeps teams focused on solving business problems and ensures vendors respond to your actual needs rather than generic demonstrations.

The platform selection process in practice

A strategic platform decision follows a clear, structured process.

Discovery: define the “why” before the “what”

Before evaluating platforms, we clarify your goals. That includes commercial priorities and ROI expectations. We map current workflows and identify where they break. I look for blockers and risks that prevent progress.

In my guide Mastering B2B eCommerce Platform Selection, I explain why understanding your needs matters more than focusing on platform features. Platforms have converged in functionality. Your business has unique complexities that no platform will perfectly match out of the box. This stage anchors the entire project; without it, you are comparing platforms against an unclear benchmark.

Requirements: build documentation that holds up

Once goals are defined, we document what the platform must support. We go beyond features. We capture business capabilities, integration needs, and governance requirements. We outline budgets and timelines. We define what “satisfied” means for each requirement.

The requirements phase is where we turn business needs into clear, actionable specifications. We replace vague language like “should” with “must” and “will”. For example, instead of “the platform should be scalable,” we specify “the platform must support a 50% increase in traffic year-over-year and handle peak periods with no downtime.”

Vendor engagement: run a structured process

With clear requirements, we assess who can deliver. I manage shortlisting, RFPs, demos, and scoring. I have learned how to spot vague promises, glossed-over gaps, and distractions that create expensive issues later.

The vendor engagement phase separates genuine capability from sales performance. I ask specific questions tied to your documented requirements. We request proof of claims and push vendors to demonstrate rather than describe. Independence matters here: I am not influenced by vendor relationships or commission structures. I evaluate responses objectively against your criteria.

Final recommendation: clarity backed by evidence

You receive a decision pack with a ranked shortlist, scoring breakdowns, documented rationale, and insights into risks and trade-offs. You get evidence and confidence. The recommendation shows how each platform maps to your requirements, where gaps exist, and what compromises you would be making. That documentation also serves implementation planning and vendor accountability.

Why do businesses try to do this alone?

Some businesses run platform selection internally. It can work if you have deep platform expertise in-house and your team has time to dedicate without compromising day-to-day operations.

In practice, I have seen internal selection extend timelines by months. Teams get stuck in feature comparison without clear evaluation criteria. Vendor influence shapes decisions. Stakeholder conflicts go unresolved. The cost of getting it wrong usually exceeds the investment in getting it right.

The hidden costs of misaligned platform decisions

A poor platform decision compounds over time.

Operational friction
When the platform does not match your workflows, workarounds multiply. Manual processes fill gaps. Staff frustration increases. Efficiency drops.

Integration failures
Platforms that cannot integrate cleanly with your ERP, CRM, or finance systems create data discrepancies. Trust between systems breaks down. Reconciliation becomes a constant task.

Customisation debt
Heavy customisation to force-fit a platform creates technical debt. Every platform update becomes a project. Maintenance costs escalate. You end up locked into an expensive, fragile system.

Re-platforming costs
The most expensive outcome is re-platforming within two or three years. You pay twice for implementation, lose momentum, and damage stakeholder confidence.

These costs far exceed consultant fees. A structured selection process prevents them.

Independence vs vendor-led selection

Vendors are incentivised to sell their platform regardless of fit. I have no platform to sell. My reputation depends on helping you make the right decision, not any decision.

That independence shows up in three ways. I score all platforms against the same criteria and do not favour options based on commercial relationships. When vendors make claims, I test them: I ask for proof, request demonstrations of specific capabilities, and identify gaps. I focus on long-term fit and consider your three-year roadmap as well as your immediate needs. That independence is what you are paying for. It is the difference between being sold a platform and choosing one.

A decision built on strategy

Choosing a new eCommerce platform is one of the most important business decisions you will make. It affects revenue, operations, and customer trust for years. The process is complex. Internal disagreement and vendor noise can turn it into a guessing game.

A platform selection consultant brings clarity. I do not push software based on a feature list. I lead a rigorous process so you end up with a platform that matches your real business goals and growth plans. With the right process and guidance, your platform decision becomes a strategic advantage.

If you are working through change and need a structured, objective approach to choosing the right technology, get in touch to talk through your goals and see if my platform selection service is the right fit.