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

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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

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