Managing E-Business - Concepts and Cases

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e-business, Irving Wladawsky-Berger, IT expenditures, HRMS, Xerox PeopleNet, Dell.com, TVS eShop, AutoXchange, Covisint, CarPoint

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Conclusion

According to a study conducted by Mercer Management Consulting, one of the major requirements for a successful e-business strategy is overhauling an organization's culture. Many companies are still not able to adopt the e-business culture. According to International Data Corporation, though 60% of the companies in the US have their own websites, only 25% of them have enabled online transactions.

Successful e-business projects have well-defined reasons to exist that motivate people to change. Unfortunately, most e-business initiatives fail because of lack of vision and leadership. It is important that a proper level of executive sponsorship is established with full support of the top management to execute e-business projects. Explaining the importance of top management in successfully executing e-business strategy, Irving Wladawsky-Berger, vice-president for technology and strategy for IBM, explains, "The role of the CEO is exceptionally important to making all of this happen. Bottom line, you have to make people really understand, emotionally and psychologically, that this is different than anything that came before."

A proactive e-business project management team will define new roles and responsibilities to the employees affected by the new e-business strategy and reorganization. The team must be ready to delegate responsibilities, discuss problems, communicate and lead the company through change brought by e-business. With the global economic slow down and reduced IT expenditures, organizations have started thinking more critically about embracing e-business. Unlike couple of years back, all e-business projects are now facing more scrutiny with a thorough analysis of their return on investments. All e-business projects that are of longer duration, complex in nature, or not important have been shelved.

During the recent years, several new e-business initiatives have failed since they attempted to apply traditional concepts to an abstract scenario and their business goals were narrow focused. Its time for organizations to realize the limitations of an e-business strategy as well. The challenge for organizations is to develop an e-business strategy that can be easily integrated into the business. It must be executable both within the organization as well as with its business partners.