The e-business on Demand Adoption Model


To better understand the way businesses are using the Internet to become more flexible and competitive today, consider the model shown in Figure 1.1. In the model, e-business adoption is broken down into three phases.

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Figure 1.1: The e-business adoption process.

During the "early" phase of e-business adoption, companies begin to create and promote their Web sites as a new way to deliver information about their business, products, and services. The benefit of doing this is that customers can access this information 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. In this early phase a business is also able to interact in very basic ways with customers via e-mail and perhaps perform simple business transactions online. An IBM study of some 33,000 enterprises around the world found that about three quarters are currently in this early phase of e-business.

During the "integration" phase, a business begins to take the Web presence developed during the early phase and securely integrate it with other key business systems. That is, the integration phase enables the smooth flow of information all the way through every key business process within the company. This is called end-to-end integration and offers the potential for increased productivity and sales growth. About a quarter of all large firms (over 1000 employees) and over half the world's largest companies are in the integration phase of e-business. IBM has calculated its own savings from e-business integration efforts to be $6.2 billion.

In the "on demand" phase, the focus is on securely extending the end-to-end integration model to include systems and processes of those outside the enterprise—including customers, suppliers, and partners. Here a business benefits from additional cost savings, flexibility, increased customer service, and just-in-time business models that improve efficiencies. The on demand phase also enables a business to adapt to change more quickly and in more meaningful ways—which is one of the most valuable things e-business has to offer. About 5% of all companies surveyed (and 6% of larger firms) are moving into the on demand phase of e-business.

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Wherever a business is along the e-business adoption curve, there must be an ever-present effort to move to the next phase. Any business that is not on the move can rest assured that its competitors are (either those that are well known or those that will come out of nowhere). In this way, a business is like a shark... it must keep moving forward or it will surely drown. In the era of e-business on demand, the advantage goes to the fast, not the large.




Building on Your Aix Investment(c) Moving Foreword With IBM Eserver pSeries in an on Demand World
Writing Secure Code, Second Edition
ISBN: N/A
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 56

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