There`s no magic formula for implementing e-commerce and moving towards an e-business model. What`s right today could be history tomorrow. What`s more, every company has different, unique needs that defy out of the box e-business solutions.
So says Mike Moore, business development consultant at Rubico, the leading South African developer of component-based enterprise solutions. "There`s only one constant in e-business today - and that`s the need for flexibility," he says. "Companies that lock themselves into an all-embracing technology and business solutions environment are going to hit the wall sooner rather than later, because of the rate at which e-business needs are changing."
Moore advises companies looking to implement an e-commerce strategy to ensure they understand the difference between e-commerce and e-business and have a strategy totally aligned with their back-end systems.
E-business and e-commerce are often considered to be one and the same thing - the application of electronic network technology such as the Internet and electronic data interchange (EDI) to improve and change business processes. "But they`re not the same," says Moore. "E-commerce is about the front end of the business - the customer-facing processes and those interfacing with suppliers and external partners. It`s about growing a business through new models.
"E-business includes e-commerce but also covers internal processes such as production, inventory management, product development, risk management, finance, knowledge management and human resources in addition to external processes such as managing suppliers and customer interactions. It`s concerned with effecting cost efficiencies and productivity improvements across an extended enterprise." he adds.
It`s the difference in the level of integration with other business solutions that really set the two apart. E-commerce, while necessitating a major mindset change for most companies, is relatively easy to implement. It involves three types of integration: vertical integration of front-end Web site applications to existing transaction systems; cross-business integration of a company with Web sites of customers, suppliers or intermediaries; and integration of technology with processes for order handling, purchasing or customer service.
E-business entails four areas of integration: vertically, between Web front- and back-end systems; laterally, between a company and its customers, business partners, suppliers or intermediaries; horizontally, among e-commerce, enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), knowledge management and supply-chain management systems; and downward through the enterprise, for integration of new technologies with radically redesigned business processes.
"The big danger is that many South African companies will look at all this and say it`s an IT problem. Any e-business strategy has to be driven by the business not IT," he says.
That`s one of the reasons there can be no out-of-the-box e-business solution, because every business has different business needs. A recent report by European business consultants, the Butler Group comments: "Forming strategies and implementing solutions to become an e-business requires two major considerations. Firstly, an understanding has to be gained that there is no e-business solution per se; there are individual elements that when implemented correctly will move organisations forward into the e-business space. Secondly, these individual elements - their implementations and the order in which they are carried out - will be, to a large extent, organisationally specific.
"This means that there is no right or wrong way of implementing e-business solutions for every company, but that there is a right and wrong way for each individual company. The difference is more than semantic, it can be as important as the difference between success and failure."
According to Moore the only way to address such unique needs is by implementing a components-based solution where the technology architecture is separate from the business solutions.
"When the underlying technology remains separate, meeting unique and rapidly changing needs at the business side becomes a non-event. You merely fine tune the specific aspect or component of business solution to meet specific needs - be they unique to the user or a changing process or business model," concludes Moore.
Share
Editorial contacts