Over the past decade, Internet and Web technologies have remade the business world. E-business has dramatically changed how companies’ business processes are implemented and enhanced, altered industry structures, and shifted the balance of power between corporations and their suppliers and customers (both downstream partners and consumers).
Companies in every industry have had to evaluate the opportunities and threats presented by e-business. Although many “pure-play” or “born-on-the-Web” organizations have come into being, the economy still consists mostly of companies that were created well before the advent of e-business. For large and mature corporations, responding to these trends has been difficult. Even so, most e-business research has focused on new companies. From our academic research and work with various established, global corporations, we have developed a planning process that puts e-business into perspective and helps make it manageable. (See “About the Research.”)
The E-Business Planning Process
Four major steps make up the planning phase for new e-business projects using existing products and services, processes and markets: (1) Identify potential e-business initiatives, (2) Analyze the functional scope of e-business initiatives, (3) Analyze the sustainability of benefits from e-business initiatives and (4) Prioritize e-business initiatives.
In addition to the planning phase, the e-business development process also includes phases for feasibility analysis, implementation, testing, deployment and performance review. The overall process can be set within a development life cycle spanning... To read the complete article, login or sign-up using the form below.
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