Business communities the esoterical side of e-business

The IT business is no longer about technology as an end, but rather as a means to an end. South African resellers need to grasp this paradigm shift in high-tech business if they want to survive.

"The customer`s need to increase business effectiveness and competitiveness based on `value add` are the most fundamental drivers of change in the way IT resellers will have to do business in the future," says n-Time market development director Johann Botha.

"We all know that technology can have a profound impact on the way our customers conduct their business, but therein lies a part of the problem that we, as IT sector business participants need to overcome. Long gone are the days that resellers (no matter how large their resource pool) can be all things to all people. Technology complexity is driving the need for specialisation and `division of labour` in our sector. This change is not as demeaning as `division of labour` was in the industrial age, but actually offers both individuals and companies the opportunity to play a vital role in the IT needs of our customers in a much more open and collaborative environment with partners which were competitors yesterday."

IT players must choose between being a specialist and offering their services to generalists, and being a generalist and pooling the resources of specialists to form a business community, Botha continues. "No matter who you are - IT role-players will have to learn to work together. Even larger companies will have to re-organise themselves into autonomous business units that can partner with other industry players as part of the professional IT team. A strategic business unit (a mechanism to achieve the necessary focus) is no longer enough, business units should have the freedom to partner with whom they like to achieve the overall goals of the business - and ultimately be held responsible for the outcomes."

This concept is not unique - European long-range planners have advocated the need for strategic networks or business communities since the mid-80s.

According to Hinterhuber and Levin, there are four basic stages of business development:

1.       Non-existing capital or imperative relationships (early 1900s)

2.       High control from the capital side, but not related operatively (1970s)

3.       High linkage both in terms of capital and business focus (1980s)

4.       Some linkage in capital and higher linkage in business focus (1990 and beyond)

It is this last phase of development which Botha believes local business is battling to understand and exploit. "What is increasingly clear, however," he says, "is the fact that only an extremely focused unit, functioning in a network more or less loosely co-ordinated by a `server`, can be quick and flexible enough to survive and prosper in a volatile market place."

Botha points to several advantages which a business community can offer its participants. "Business communities can be extremely flexible and agile," he says. "Being able to constantly correct, adjust, or change the participants in the community, enables it to maintain its superiority over time. It is much easier to build up something from small parts than to break up a larger `block` into small units.

"Changes in technology permit instantaneous analyses and responses, even in large concentrated markets; this has created completely new game rules. Smaller units, provided they are organised and driven properly, can achieve an absolute strategic superiority against the large concerns dominating the industry, while still thinking in terms of market share, intimate customer relationships and maximum value add."

The problem, Botha adds, is that solid and continuous relationships, as well as submission to the driver of the process are not in the nature of South African business culture. "The development of the South African IT industry depends on the recognition of the requirements underlying the development of strategically constituted business communities and implementing them in an optimal fashion - maximising strengths and eliminating weaknesses."

As a networking skills partner to the IT channel, n-Time does not sell products, but skills to large and small IT companies. n-Time takes the risk away from resellers and assists them by providing highly skilled people for customer pre-sales, consulting and support, post-sales support and technical marketing assistance. Consequently, resellers no longer have to carry the burden of keeping highly skilled people with exorbitant salaries on their payroll. n-Time ensures that these skills are made available at a fraction of the cost, so that resellers can offer their clients new value-added service.

"We believe firmly in the value we can offer to partners and visa versa," says Botha. "Our company has chosen to be a network specialist - that is our focus, competency and passion. We deliver skills through partners - we have overcome the control phobia and have realised that the traditional view of `customer ownership` is a misnomer."

"Customers cannot be owned - they are our partners and with our channel partners we will jointly strive to deliver real business benefits and effectiveness. The MB Worksoft stable also has member companies with exceptional and specialised skills that partners can harness," he concludes.