[8] 2002 e-business-strategies-for-virtual-organizations
[8] 2002 e-business-strategies-for-virtual-organizations
[8] 2002 e-business-strategies-for-virtual-organizations
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
e-Business Strategies <strong>for</strong> Virtual Organizations<br />
160<br />
economy that promotes harmony over three vectors – customer/market<br />
interaction, asset sourcing and knowledge leverage<br />
supported by a strong ITC plat<strong>for</strong>m. They see this as the<br />
<strong>virtual</strong> organizing model <strong>for</strong> the 21st century and as such a<br />
strategy in itself.<br />
Figure 7.2 gives a view of an organization using an enterprise<br />
resource planning (ERP) system such as SAP, as an integrated<br />
system to enable knowledge management across the three<br />
vectors of the organization.<br />
Virtual encounters (customer interaction) refers to the extent to<br />
which you <strong>virtual</strong>ly interact with the market defined at three<br />
levels of greater <strong>virtual</strong> progression:<br />
� Remote product/service experience.<br />
� Product/service customization.<br />
� Shaping customer solutions.<br />
Virtual sourcing (asset sourcing) refers to competency leveraging<br />
from:<br />
� Efficient sourcing of standard components.<br />
� Efficient asset leverage in the <strong>business</strong> network.<br />
� Creating new competencies through alliances.<br />
Virtual work (knowledge leverage) refers to:<br />
� Maximizing individual experience.<br />
� Harnessing organizational expertise.<br />
� Leveraging of community expertise.<br />
Virtual organizing is a strategic approach that is singularly<br />
focused on creating, nurturing and deploying key intellectual<br />
and knowledge assets in a complex network of relationships. No<br />
one vector adequately captures the potential opportunities of<br />
<strong>virtual</strong> organizing: their interdependence creates the new<br />
<strong>business</strong> model. ITC is at the centre, integrating these three<br />
vectors (normally quite discrete functions in a traditional<br />
organization), and through an interoperable IT plat<strong>for</strong>m ensures<br />
internal consistencies in the profile of <strong>virtual</strong>ness relevant to<br />
competitors and referent companies in the marketplace.<br />
Certainly the knowledge leverage has to integrate directly with<br />
the customer interaction in a <strong>virtual</strong> organization and with the<br />
asset sourcing. However, it may be that a <strong>virtual</strong> organization<br />
chooses to adopt an innovator strategy in one and an exploiter<br />
strategy in another such that the knowledge management while<br />
still integrated and aligned will reflect different stages of vector