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

8 Evaluating strategies for e-business change
8.1 Introduction
It takes all the running you can do to keep in the
same place.
(The Red Queen, in Through the Looking Glass,
Lewis Carroll)
Global, fast, cheap, communication technologies coupled with
new, innovative, management practices bring both new opportunities
and threats. For many organizations the threats – rapid
market change, new and more agile competitors and diminishing
control over organizational changes – outweigh the opportunities
which themselves require a dynamic approach to
change. An organization that is responsive to change and
capitalizes on new alliances, better customer and supplier
relationships and new markets, products and services needs to
have a different strategic planning and management process in
place which is associated with an effective value measurement
system. The majority of measurement systems imply static value
measurements based on financial returns and do not reflect the
holistic view of an enterprise that is needed to support the
transition to a virtual organization.
Before considering the specific application of an e-business plan,
each organization seeking to gain advantage from the emerging
ICT and Internet tools should strive to gain an understanding of
its current and potential position in the universe of business.
There are many ways of doing this, and many ways of
translating the results into action, several examples are given
throughout this book at appropriate stages. This doesn’t mean
that there is one right model, or that you should necessarily
move from one model to another when considering systems
thinking and needs at different levels. Rather that there are