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

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e-business strategies in the virtual organization 10.4.6 Letting customers help themselves We can all learn how industry leaders are making a success of letting customers help themselves. A stroll though the online customer interfaces of Dell Online and iPrint shows how customers who want to help themselves can do so. They not only simply find information, but also order products via the Web. These companies have thought through each step of the customer’s decision-making and procurement process. It is time to measure your organization against this standard. How far can customers go in self-service? What happens when they reach a stumbling block? Can customers interact with your organization 24 hours a day from anywhere? Once you get people to order online, or through any channel for that matter, you need to allow them to check what is happening to the order. The Web provides the cheapest and simplest way for customers to do this – and give them an empowered feeling of importance while saving the company money. In Cisco’s case, as soon as they made online order status-checking available, calls to the call centre dropped to 10% of the former volume. Customers simply went to the Web, and liked it. 10.4.7 Helping customers do their jobs Do you really understand your customers’ decision-making process? Do you know how your product or service fits into your customer’s job? Do you know what it would take to really integrate your product or service seamlessly into your customer’s job? 10.4.8 Delivering personalized service Dow Jones’s Wall Street Journal Interactive and Liberty Financial’s Stein Roe Farhnham websites are great examples of delivering cost-effective personalized service on the Web. Both build dynamic websites for each individual based on that person’s profile. Personalization may mean tailoring the offer directly for each customer, as in the two examples above, or it may involve simply making account information available, or selectively alerting customers to items of particular interest to them. What, we may ask, is the difference between handmade shoes made to measure by the local cobbler, and the kitchen made to 213
e-Business Strategies for Virtual Organizations order by an Internet design service? Both provide customized service, but the latter combines it with post-industrial revolution economies of scale. This is achievable because the design service can serve a widely spread geographical population, using the data transport provided by the Internet and the physical transport of our late 20th-century infrastructure, plus a database-driven manufacturing facility. 10.4.9 Fostering community Why is fostering community a way to make it easier for customers to do business with you? At first, it seems like a ‘nice to have’, but not essential, characteristic of an easy-to-use website or a successful customer loyalty programme. But as the success of newsnet and online communities and chatrooms of many types demonstrates, customers gain a lot of value from interacting with one another and often find the community aspect of a website is what makes them feel taken care of. Cisco Systems’ incredible success in electronic commerce (in addition to good products) has been built on a foundation of community – customers helping each other to solve highly technical problems. Each company now needs to ask what its customers have in common? Would they value the opportunity to learn from one another? 10.5 Getting close to customers within e-hubs 214 While companies like Dell and Amazon stay in the headlines, it is not surprising that many people believe that B2C e-business is a strong new business event. The reality is that, as many large (mainly US) conglomerates know, the real value to business e-business and virtual organization lies in B2B transactions. A survey by the US Census Bureau of the Commerce Department published in 2001 shows that in 1999 B2B activity accounted for US$485 billion, as against US$15 billion in B2C transactions. This means that 12% of manufacturing shipments were made as a result of e-business transactions two years ago within the world’s largest economy. And the figure has been rising since then, particularly though industry portals and e-hubs. We therefore need to consider, as a matter of urgency, our strategy for managing the customers we have through these channels.
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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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Figure 4.1 The evolution of IS/IT p
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Figure 4.3 A framework for SISP (Wa
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Figure 4.4 Planning adopts a busine
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Figure 4.5 Interconnected ecologies
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Figure 4.6 The interrelationships b
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4.8 Conclusion IS planning strategi
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References IS planning strategies f
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Moving from e-business to i-busines
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Globalization and e-business strate
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Adoption and deployment of online i
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Table 6.1 Online business models On
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Figure 6.2 VIM strategy Globalizati
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7 Developing knowledge-based strate
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Developing knowledge-based strategi
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Page 186 and 187: 8 Evaluating strategies for e-busin
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Page 194 and 195: Customer view Whatisour image? Eval
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Page 218 and 219: Figure 9.2 Outsourcing, partnering
Page 220 and 221: 9.9 Summary Outsourcing, partnering
Page 222 and 223: References Outsourcing, partnering
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Page 242 and 243: 10.10 Summary e-business strategies
Page 244 and 245: 11 Creating virtual cultures for gl
Page 246 and 247: Creating virtual cultures for globa
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Page 264 and 265: Figure 11.4 The four paths of evolu
Page 266 and 267: References Creating virtual culture
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[8] 2002 e-business-strategies-for-virtual-organizations

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