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

e-Business Strategies for Virtual Organizations
acceptance of, even an enthusiasm for change and uncertainty
with respect to its products and services, its customer base, its
structure and scope, and in its very approach to doing business.
This characteristic means that virtual organizations are at ease
with the idea of porous and changing organizational boundaries,
changing their skills and skill levels through outsourcing
and alliances. In these ways virtual organizations incorporate
the competencies of other organizations’ employees so as to
quickly adapt and change their skills base and thus take
advantage of emerging business opportunities.
Underpinning and enabling the opportunistic behaviour of
virtual organizations, and coordinating and managing disparate
resources and activities in the virtual organization supply chain
going right through to the customer, is a heavy reliance on IT
and communications technologies. IT supports some of the new
organizational alliances and forms necessary to design and
produce new goods and services quickly, and provides a fast
and convenient channel through which to promote and inform
potential customers of organizational product and service
developments, and to accept and process sales to customers.
These new technologies provide the information and communication
framework necessary for the anywhere anytime work
that takes place in virtual organizations. In addition, it must be
noted that virtual organizations are information intensive and
hence may well be expected to be heavily reliant on information
technology. However, it must be acknowledged that the virtual
organization can exist without heavy reliance on IT, although it
is generally acknowledged that in most contemporary cases, IT
will occupy an important position.
2.4 Summary of characteristics of the agile
VO
22
The virtual organization is put forward as a low-cost, highly
responsive and adaptable way to organize and compete in the
face of extreme turbulence and uncertainty in the business
environment. The essential characteristics of the virtual organization
have been argued to be:
� adaptability, flexibility and responsiveness to changing
requirements and conditions;
� effectiveness in utilization of resources;
� formation of business alliances of varying degrees of
permanence;
� dispersion of component parts;