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

e-Business Strategies for Virtual Organizations
Figure 3.2
The virtual face
Figure 3.3
Coalliance model
44
There is a tight link between the virtual face and the parent
organization: a fresh communications channel has been forged
between the existing corporate structure and the customer. This
model is used by the majority of companies who offer web
pages to complement existing channels to market.
3.4.2 Coalliance model
In a coalliance each partner brings approximately equal
amounts of commitment to the consortium whose composition
may change to reflect market opportunities or the core competencies
of each member. Focus can be on specific functions
such as collaborative design or engineering or in providing
virtual management. Links are either contractual for enduring
alliances or by mutual convenience on a project basis. There is
not normally a high degree of substitutability within the life of
that virtual creation. This organizational form is not unique to
cyberspace, but its attractiveness as a virtual model is a
consequence of the benefits flowing from low friction communications
in real time and the ease with which such structures
can be assembled and restructured. Its novelty lies in the speed
and efficiency with which alliances can usefully form, perform
their tasks, and reform owing to efficient communications, and
hence the ease with which others can treat the partners as a
virtual (single) entity existing for a specified time. Examples
include real estate vendors who form an alliance to cater for
interstate relocations such as LAA.com – an Australian-based
consortium of estate agents with independent operators (such as
Acton operating in Western Australia) in each state but a
coalliance to facilitate interstate transfers where two of the
consortium will ally with each other under the LAA alliance.