E-commerce platform provider MarketLive Inc. has hired Terry Austin as president and CEO. Austin has executive experience in mobile computing, supply chain technology and strategic consulting at Motorola Corp., Manugistics and Accenture. He succeeds Ken Burke, founder of MarketLive who remains as chairman and chief evangelist.
Austin, noting that he’ll get directly involved with MarketLive’s professional services to assure that the firm meets clients’ technology needs, arrives at a time when MarketLive is planning to partner with a systems integrator that will extend MarketLive’s capability to help clients deploy e-commerce technology, the company says. “I’ll certainly be hands-on with our professional services team,” Austin tells InternetRetailer.com. “We’ll do a more effective job of delivering against our clients’ goals.”
Adds Burke: "Terry brings the unique combination of vision, operational excellence and a customer-oriented focus to MarketLive."
Austin says he expects to focus on two areas: growing client activity by marketing to an expanded base as well as meeting the needs of existing customers; and looking for ways to extend the capabilities of the MarketLive technology platform.
“We’ll be looking for areas where we can add more value,” Austin says.
MarketLive’s position in the market will continue to be centered on its ability to offer both a hosted, partly managed e-commerce platform and a platform that offers direct control by retailers, he says. But, leveraging a platform re-architected in the past 18 months to support more flexible configurations, MarketLive will also explore ways to extend its platform in areas such as fulfillment, supply chain and content management, he adds.
Austin will work closely with Burke, who will remain “fully engaged” in MarketLive’s customer-serving strategy, Austin says. “I’ll rely on Ken to keep setting the agenda for what online retailers should think about and continue working with our product team to incorporate those ideas,” he says.
Prior to joining MarketLive, Austin served as president of worldwide marketing and sales for Good Technology Inc., a unit of Motorola Corp. that provides mobile computing systems and managed services to companies including Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Starbucks Corp.
Earlier, Austin served as president of European operations for Manugistics, a supply chain technology company that is now part of JDA Software Group Inc., a provider of enterprise software for retailers. Prior to Manugistics, Austin was the lead partner of the North American Supply Chain Line of Business at Accenture.
MarketLive’s customer base includes retailers Norm Thompson Outfitters, Stride Rite, Trek and Garnet Hill.
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