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

Globalization and e-business strategies for SMEs
management. Participant enterprises can concentrate on selling
their products. On the other hand, clients are offered a one-stop
access to a wide range of goods and services and at reduced
prices due to the relatively low cost associated with marketing
and distribution channel management for the vendors.
6.6 Transforming the SME environment
Tetteh and Burn (2001) suggest that central to the global strategy
of the online SME is the virtual transformation of five key
dimensions (or attributes) of the SME environment. These
attributes, which capture the scope of business operations of the
SME, are:
� Size/value of assets and resources;
� Market coverage and product mix;
� Activities and processes;
� Linkages and relationships within environment; and
� Locational diversity/scope.
Together they form the S-M-A-L-L framework.
The attributes focus on those aspects of the SME that impact on
its ability to reach wider markets; access extensive resources;
enhance, diversify and integrate its activities; manage collaborative
engagements with others; and deal with temporal and
locational diversity issues. By gaining a wider market the SME
is placed in a favourable position to enhance its competitive
performance estimated as a composite measure of a number of
performance variables including value of sales, profits,
enhanced global image, increased market access and broader
customer base. Leveraging the online infrastructure can lead to
an extension of the dimensions of the SME to varying degrees.
The extent of transformation depends on the fit between the
firm’s business model, its strategic direction and the appropriate
infrastructure management strategy. Table 6.2 provides detailed
descriptions of each attribute and the associated organizational
variables. For any SME, relative values can be assigned to each
of the attributes using a set of discrete values low, medium high
on a Likert-type quantitative estimation.
6.7 Virtual infrastructure management
The extent of contribution from the infrastructure will depend
on the information intensity of the business value chain. The
information intensity of the value chain derives from four
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