[8] 2002 e-business-strategies-for-virtual-organizations

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Globalization and e-business strategies for SMEs businesses. Indeed in the near future, real competitive performance will be linked more and more to strategies employed by firms to manage the third level systems rather than to the mere ownership of them. For a global-orientated SME, these strategies must be targeted at the transformation of the firm’s environment through the functionalities associated with the Internet environment. These may be understood from two interrelated views of the Internet, namely: � as an interorganizational system (IOS) platform; � as the marketspace. Each of these perspectives reveals potential benefits and contributions to the global strategy of the online SME. It is important to appreciate how these functionalities can be brought together to create a winning strategy for any particular business. 6.2.2 Internet – an inter-organizational system (IOS) platform The Internet provides a platform for building flexible, adaptive and innovative organizational formats. The Internet’s open systems architecture allows the SME to achieve a high level of integration of its enterprise-wide infrastructure by building on the installed bases of PCs, digital assets and competencies of clients, suppliers, partners and others on a global scale. Indeed, designing an infrastructure on the Net, allows the SME to focus on only a core set of ICT equipment, tools and personnel to support its operations. This can lead to huge savings in IT investment and management costs. The core assets and resources may be distributed across wide geographical regions. Thus the cost of transactions with clients and partners can be significantly reduced leading to improved profit margins. Also, the increasing simplicity and familiarity of the user interfaces and online applications mean that employees, clients and other stakeholders can learn quickly and participate in knowledge creation and development of end products. 6.2.3 Internet – the marketspace The Internet effectively simulates an electronic marketspace through its ability to intermediate among market players and to integrate diverse markets. As a marketspace it can reduce search costs and thereby enhance the efficiency of interorganizational 113
e-Business Strategies for Virtual Organizations transactions. Specifically, it has the capacity to lower the marginal costs of electronic business processes, reduce the criticality of many intermediaries and enable the efficient handling of large volumes of transactions leading to superior cost/performance for the business. However, these functionalities are not equally available to all businesses across all industries. The extent of disintermediation (i.e. the process of removing the role of middlemen) will depend on product and service characteristics. Information intensive businesses, especially the services sector, may witness a reduction in layers of intermediaries as compared with those in the manufacturing industries. There is also increasing recognition of the emergence of new forms of intermediaries which seek to exploit the emerging niches in the electronic marketspace. Thus it is critical for the global-orientated SME to articulate its current and future business directions and to analyse how these relate to developments in the electronic marketspace. This will allow it to choose the appropriate business model, infrastructure configuration and an effective management strategy. In the next section we present a broad framework for managing an Internet-based information infrastructure that facilitates the achievement of extended market access and competitive performance of a global-orientated SME. A number of case examples will demonstrate how this online infrastructure can facilitate the extension of the scope of operations of the SME, especially in: � managing core organizational activities which may now be dispersed over multiple geographical sites; � mediation of the cooperative efforts between business partners and other stakeholders; � management of the client community; � development of a consistent global image of business and products. The cases also reveal that to be successful, an online enterprise needs a strategy that aligns its business logic/model with its infrastructure configuration on a continuous basis. 6.3 Strategic framework for managing a global SME business 114 Figure 6.1 describes the broad framework for managing a global e-business strategy within an SME context. Readers will note that this builds upon the conceptual framework introduced in
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e-Business Strategies for Virtual O
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e-Business Strategies for Virtual O
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Contents Computer Weekly Profession
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Contents 6 Globalization and e-busi
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Contents 11.6 The increasing power
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Computer Weekly Professional Series
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Authors’ Preface There are dozens
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Authors’ Preface model will there
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Authors’ Preface alliances, bette
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1 e-business and the virtual organi
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e-business and the virtual organiza
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Figure 1.2 e-business and the virtu
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1.5 e-business e-business and the v
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Figure 1.3 e-business and the virtu
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Figure 1.4 Virtual objects, Scholz
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Characteristics of the virtual orga
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Figure 2.1 Formation of business al
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� empowerment of staff; Character
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e-business models for virtual organ
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3.4 Models of efficient response e-
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Figure 3.4 Star alliance model e-bu
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Figure 3.6 Market alliance model Fi
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Figure 3.10 Virtual alliance framew
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Figure 3.11 Virtual organizational
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References e-business models for vi
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IS planning strategies for emerging
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IS planning strategies for emerging
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Figure 4.1 The evolution of IS/IT p
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Page 86 and 87: Figure 4.4 Planning adopts a busine
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Page 90 and 91: Figure 4.6 The interrelationships b
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Page 94 and 95: 4.8 Conclusion IS planning strategi
Page 96 and 97: References IS planning strategies f
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Page 134 and 135: Adoption and deployment of online i
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Page 140 and 141: Figure 6.2 VIM strategy Globalizati
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Developing knowledge-based strategi
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Developing knowledge-based strategi
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8 Evaluating strategies for e-busin
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Figure 8.2 Fitness landscapes Evalu
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Evaluating strategies for e-busines
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Table 8.1 Information economics - v
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Customer view Whatisour image? Eval
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Table 8.6 Matrix for preparing to m
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9 Outsourcing, partnering and the v
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Outsourcing, partnering and the vir
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Figure 9.2 Outsourcing, partnering
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9.9 Summary Outsourcing, partnering
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References Outsourcing, partnering
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e-business strategies in the virtua
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10.10 Summary e-business strategies
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11 Creating virtual cultures for gl
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Creating virtual cultures for globa
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Four stages of market evolution Mar
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Figure 11.4 The four paths of evolu
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References Creating virtual culture
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Advanced knowledge, see Knowledge A
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[8] 2002 e-business-strategies-for-virtual-organizations

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