eBusiness is Business
A presentation by Prasena Isabelle Michelet, 24 October 02 imichelet@prasena.com
- Globalization-oriented
Strategic Management: The top management understands the difference between
multi-domestic and global, and ensures that its organization structure
is ergonomic in a global perspective.
- Globalization-oriented Financial Resources Management: It is understood
and accepted that operations must be structured so as to generate the
highest global added value, which will then be distributed locally.
- Globalization-oriented Technical Resources Management: The infostructure
is designed to integrate all organization's processes and communications,
across business lines, functions and frontiers, and anybody therefore
can fully benefit from the infostructure anywhere at any time.
- Globalization-oriented Human Resources Management: Each employee is
able to (and expected to) grasp, and adapt to, conceptual and operational
realities at different levels and in different cultures.
- Globalization-oriented Supply Chain Management: The organization considers
the world as its territory, in terms of source of supplies, resource for
new products, as well as outlet for sales and distribution. Clients can
expect similar products/services anywhere in the world, with local adaptations
when relevant.
- Molecularization-oriented
Strategic Management: The top management respects and delegates non-strategic
decisions to its employees, its partners, its clients, and the organization’s
structure is ergonomic in a molecular perspective.
- Molecularization-oriented Financial Resources Management: Added value
has the priority over economies of scale.
- Molecularization-oriented Technical Resources Management: Technologies
are structured as a network of light expert systems, autonomous but integrated,
flexible and open.
- Molecularization-oriented Human Resources Management: The individual
position is recognized as a business unit, the position-holder is an empowered
employee who can function autonomously within objectives and policy guidelines,
and the supervisor is an inspiring leader rather than a link in an authority-based
chain of command.
- Molecularization-oriented Supply Chain Management: The solutions (products
+ services) integrate both the advantages of mass production and those
of customization.
- Reintermediation-oriented
Strategic Management: The top management designs a flat network organization
and rethinks the value of all intermediary professions/services, whether
internal or external, to the extent that it may close or relocate some
of the organization's establishments.
- Reintermediation-oriented Financial Resources Management: All people
involved (and not only top and middle management) share planning and financial
activities, which are transparent to the added value agents.
- Reintermediation-oriented Technical Resources Management: All processes
and communications are as direct as possible, while some new intermediary
systems such as databases are introduced to enable sort/filter/search
facilities on the basis of central information warehouses.
- Reintermediation-oriented Human Resources Management: Most traditional
internal and external intermediaries have disappeared, to be replaced
(or not) by new types of intermediaries. As a result, the organization
is flatter and communications are more direct.
- Reintermediation-oriented Supply Chain Management: Direct relations
with internal and external business partners are favored and intermediaries,
if any, are selected because they add a distinctive value. In any case,
end-users expect to be able to contact directly whomever they want in
the organization.
- Internetworking-oriented Financial Resources Management: All financial and planning activities integrate all aspects of management as well as the organization's external business and social partners.
- Internetworking-oriented Technical Resources Management: Each system is interactive, linked with all other systems within the organization as well as with other relevant external systems, in a way that enables optimum cooperation while avoiding redundant or repetitive human interventions.
- Internetworking-oriented Human Resources Management: Each employee works as part of a network involving all his/her working partners, internal and external, to the extent that it may be difficult to identify in the daily operations who is employee of which department, or even which organization.
- Internetworking-oriented Supply Chain Management: All internal and external partners involved at design/production/promotion/distribution levels (suppliers, clients, sub-contractors, even competitors) are linked through a network that eliminates redundant transactions and operations and enhances synergies at all levels.
- Immediacy-oriented
Strategic Management: The organization is managed and operates on a real-time
basis, and the top management integrates the principle of immediacy in
the organization's structure.
- Immediacy-oriented Financial Resources Management: The way the organization
(by itself and within the network of its business partners) generates
and distributes it economic added value can be monitored on a real-time
basis, hence enabling the organization to respond immediately when financial
help is required.
- Immediacy-oriented Technical Resources Management: Technologies are
structured and used to enable real-time processes and communications.
This includes the flexibility to integrate newest technologies without
loss of time.
- Immediacy-oriented Human Resources Management: All employees strive
to eliminate delays at all levels, whether in their response to queries,
in their deliverables, or in their readiness for the future.
- Immediacy-oriented Supply Chain Management: All delays in the design/production/
promotion/distribution of the organization's products/services are minimized,
including in pre-sales and after-sales services. The products/services'
nature itself can be adapted to a real-time situation, in which case their
life cycle is extremely short (down to a few minutes).
- Digitalization-oriented
Strategic Management: The top management favors long-term returns on digitalization
investments over immediate profits, and ensures that the organization's
structure optimizes the use of digitalization.
- Digitalization-oriented Financial Resources Management: Financial transactions
and reporting are digitalized wherever it is optimal to do so; it is ensured
that digitalization contributes to generating more economic value overall
and that it helps the organization optimize its social contributions.
- Digitalization-oriented Technical Resources Management: Equipments digitalize
most, if not all information, consolidate it, store it and process it
for fast and easy retrieval and use anywhere in and even outside the organization.
- Digitalization-oriented Human Resources Management: All employees work
comfortably in paperless offices, where physical and analog operations
are converted into digital operations whenever it is optimal to do so,
and where therefore the memory of the entire organization can easily be
accessible to all in consistent formats.
- Digitalization-oriented Supply Chain Management: Products/services themselves
and/or the way they are designed/promoted/distributed is digital. A digital
product can be acquired without human intervention.
- Virtualization-oriented
Strategic Management: The top management thinks beyond physical boundaries
in all aspects and the organization's structure ergonomically supports
virtual work.
- Virtualization-oriented Financial Resources Management: It is ensured
that virtualization contributes to generating more economic value, and
helps the organization increase its contribution to the greater community.
- Virtualization-oriented Technical Resources Management: Technologies
used are open to virtual reality and multimedia techniques, which are
viewed as means to enhance efficiency of processes and communications.
- Virtualization-oriented Human Resources Management: Employees have integrated
the concept of virtual reality and use it, in such forms as virtual teamwork,
telework, etc. to enhance expertise and optimize synergies.
- Virtualization-oriented Supply Chain Management: Products/services themselves
and/or the way they are designed/promoted/distributed is virtual. Virtual
shopping centers can sell virtual products and be paid with virtual money.
- Innovation-oriented Financial Resources Management: The organization has longer-term views on added value than immediate profit; it is ensured that innovation contributes to the generation of economic value while benefiting the greater community as well.
- Innovation-oriented Technical Resources Management: Technologies used have the flexibility to support innovative operations, and themselves constitute an innovation by their nature, their properties, their configuration and/or their integration.
- Innovation-oriented Human Resources Management: All employees contribute to improvements, developments or unique creations at individual, team or organization level, and are encouraged, recognized and rewarded for it.
- Innovation-oriented Supply Chain Management: The products/services themselves constitute an innovation and replace prior innovative products/services even before those have lost their appeal, and/or the way they are designed/produced/promoted/distributed is innovative.
- Knowledge-oriented Financial Resources Management: Knowledge is considered and managed as a key corporate asset, generator of economic value, and it becomes a key component of the organization's social contribution to the greater community.
- Knowledge-oriented Technical Resources Management: Technologies are structured and used to stimulate the rethinking of traditional ways of working, to support more efficient processes and communication networks, and to help humans concentrate on strategic thinking, creation, design, analysis and decision-making, rather than routine tasks. Expert systems are able to take over sophisticated and complex operations.
- Knowledge-oriented Human Resources Management: Each employee is a knowledge worker, expert in his/her own right (therefore valuable individually and recognized as such) and contributor to what is becoming the greatest asset of an organization – its human capital.
- Knowledge-oriented Supply Chain Management: Knowledge is integrated in the design, the nature itself, the production processes, the promotion and the distribution of the organization's products and services. Most of these products and services have become "smart" and clients are able to know as much as they want about them.
Organizations’ Current Challenge
Set strategic directions
for business
Identify valuable investments to support business strategy
Only one obvious rule: neither strategies nor investments should go against
environment trends
Positioning audits should be considered as the most urgent and valuable investment today!
5 Management areas
6 different points of view
30 online surveys
In each survey:
Policies and practices in the area
Readiness for cyber-characteristics
Key success factor
Five Key Success Factors
Ergostructure
How the organization structures itself physically and virtually so that
its resources achieve highest efficiency
Added Value
How the organization achieves and contributes to sustainable development
through economic, social and environmental added value
Infostructure
How the organization optimizes the synergy between its technical and human
resources through the use of information technologies in line with its
business strategy
Human Capital
How the organization captures the knowledge available among its internal
and external resources to build up and develop a unique expertise
Cyberlogistics
How the organization uses partnering within e-business communities to
focus on its core competencies and deliver innovative solutions to market
segments of one
Over 1 year, implementation in ~25 organizations in Asia
Sample covering public and private sector, small and large entities, European/US/Asian management
Organizations’ readiness for e-business varies widely
No recognizable pattern across traditional criteria
Recognized problem areas may, or may not, be the problem areas potentially most damageable in actuality
Most problems relate to mindset / corporate culture
Recognized Problem Areas
Infostructure
Pioneers suffer from obsolete, but not-yet depreciated technologies
Late-comers still confuse sophistication and complexity
Recognized Problem Areas
Knowledge Management
– Human Capital
Enabling technologies are very recent – Everybody at starting point
Too often viewed as a purely technical issue
Recognized Problem Areas
People and Technologies
Partnering
Often the cause of problems, instead of pure IT or HR issues
Too often viewed as a mere user training issue
Recognized Problem Areas
Cyberlogistics most often addressed first, but…
Recognized Problem Areas
Added Value (sustainable
development) and Ergostructure least often addressed at this early stage
