The time and productivity one loses when attending seminars, conferences, trade fairs and other such industry gatherings is generally compensated for by the opportunity to touch base with industry players and do some serious networking to boot.
Somewhere along the line, organisations as a whole lose both purpose and focus, resulting in ever growing stories of failed e-business ventures.
Basheera Khan, Journalist, ITWeb</P>
The IGNITE conference that took place last week in Sun City is a case in point - anyone who attended would have had access to roughly 200 CEOs and CIOs representing large enterprises from across the broad range of SA`s most lucrative industries.
These delegates came in search of lessons from the experience of others in making the most of the Internet as a business tool, and in some cases, to negotiate business deals with the various vendors that were also in attendance.
Several speakers spoke with brutal honesty about the difficulties involved in taking a business online; marketing the new channel, deciding how and in what order various business services should be rolled out online, the pitfalls of over-promising the benefits to clients, and possibly the most difficult of all, delivering the product or service on time.
It was refreshing, exciting and just a bit frightening as well, when one considers that the intricacies of e-business have been reported on in extensive detail across a variety of media channels, even making waves in the mainstream business and financial space.
Why is it that the message at all of these conferences and seminars stays the same, year in and year out? Although new technological platforms continue emerging, business basics remain the same. Yet the idea of doing business across these platforms seems to stymie the best of business strategists.
Who`s to blame?
I don`t know where to lay the blame, either. It seems that in their individual capacities, those responsible for e-business in any shape or form understand the basic principles, and are eager to realise returns on the new business channels as quickly as they can. However, somewhere along the line, organisations as a whole lose both purpose and focus, resulting in ever growing stories of failed e-business ventures.
Possibly the best solution presented at IGNITE was that of communication down the lines of the intents of an e-business strategy. In other words, not just a vague injunction to various department managers to "cut costs and increase profits", but rather a detailed understanding of the way business unit interacts with the whole, and an interpretive approach that is uniquely suited to streamlining that specific business unit`s operations.
On a smaller scale, but no less relevant to the Internet industry, is the Digital Interactive Media Association`s one-day conference on roughly the same topic that will be held on Thursday.
Although it remains to be seen what advice the speakers representing Inthebag, My Life, Digital Mall, eBucks.com, MegaShopper and Kalahari.net will dispense, I live in hope of hearing a different story this time around.
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