Why has eBusiness not delivered the big bang for the BUCK?
Simply put - people have been spending too much money and too much time on eBusiness. Rampant over spending (money and time) makes the return on investment nearly impossible to achieve.
Companies and teams spend tons of time designing a 'perfect system' based on speculation and possibilities. By the time the design, solution selection and development are done, the needs have changed or evolved and the budget has been spent. The budget to 'roll-out' a solution, if it existed, is usually depleted by over runs from the design/build phase. The budget for changing the solution to meet the current needs rarely exists.
Without time or money left in the budget, companies struggle to do the one thing that is most necessary for eBusiness success - integrating the website operations into the company's day to day business processes. Staff doesn't get trained properly, processes are not modified to accommodate the new sales and service channel, systems don't talk to one another, the company forgets to answer the knock at their new front door. Adopting a new technology takes time. Changing people's habits takes way longer.
How can eBusiness deliver the big bang for the BUCK?
Stop SPECULATING and start learning. If you think your business needs an eBusiness solution - find out by selecting small solution and if it works, grow it. eBusiness in small, bite size pieces is much easier to digest for the business, the staff and the customers. The customers will tell you if the solution is working by their use of it (or lack there of). If the investment is small, the return on investment of time and budget can be achieved sooner. That return can be reinvested.
25 Year eBusiness Learning Curve
20 years ago, the first brave companies began to emerge on the barren information highway, though it looked different then it does now. The US military paid for the initial setup of the Internet. Then institutes of higher learning and research began to use the internet. In paralell, private networks operated by telephone companies connected business with their trading partners and global offices. Business standards for electronic data interchange (EDI) evolved to help business speak the same language. Mainstream, lightening fast information exchanges were demonstrated by fax machines and computer faxing.
This is not new stuff. Using it now does not make you an early adopter. It is safe to try now.
| 1985 – 1995 |
Early eBusiness Evolution |
| 1994 |
1994 marked the year of the web and html and a change in the acceptable use policy of the internet to enable ‘commerce’ on the .org,.edu,.gov network with the inclusion of .com. |
| 1995 – 1997 |
The eBusiness Revolution began with a bang. Every tom, dick and harry became an internet entrepreneur. |
| 1995 – 2000 |
Intense awakening of the capital markets and the media to the knowledge economy and the internet. Internet fever reached a hottest temperature and smart people began making bad decisions. |
| 2000 – 2003 |
The lull in hoopla of the capital markets and the media left net speculation quiet enough to hear a pindrop. The marketplace shakeout left only the strong surviving. eBusiness principles panned out and proved valid.
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| 2004 |
The 10 year results are in. Internet is here to stay and is growing and eBusiness works. What is also well proven is that value, not capital is what is required for success.
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| As of September 2004 |
Technology is here to stay. Now, its all about how to USE it. ** See below for a summary of eBusiness 2004 |
| 2005 - 2010 |
The Future is eBusiness Friendly in the era of eBusiness Value Realization
- Supply chain integration
- Business Process Integration (intra-company single record systems for consolidated information view and management)
- Information standards for flow integration between partners, business units and systems (EAI)
- Payment process integration (p2p, b2c, b2b, b2g)
- Customer self-serve model (p2p, b2c, b2b, b2g)
- Community and collaborative communications
- Distributed resource computing (people, processes, technology)
- Global trade made simple
- Increased technical literacy worldwide
- Pervasive computer usage
- Ubiquitous Internet
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eBusiness Lessons Learned over time
- Implementation takes longer and costs more then estimated
- User behavioural changes make or break a technology implementation
- Business teams and tech teams need to work together through the design, build, implementation and launch phases of a tech project
- Project management discipline should be applied to every project, regardless of the size budget, to ensure quality
- Competitive advantage is derived from the use of tech, not the ownership of it
- Maintaining dual systems undermines the effectiveness and return on investments in eBusiness
- Trading partners can save real money if they work together using technology and process automation
- Closed source and custom built solutions are expensive
- Open source and commercial open source solutions provide a viable, cost effective alternative
- Customers expect a business to have an online presence
- As always, garbage in equals garbage out
- More business intelligence is hidden in data then every thought
- Customer will talk to your business and provide feedback if you ask them to
- Service over price creates loyalty
- Competition is fierce and one click away
SmartSpeed helps businesses apply the lessons learned over the past 20 years to challenges and opportunities facing business today.
eBusiness Keeps Growing
The market continues to change shape and substance, with early adopters demanding more and mainstream users continuing to struggle with deployment issues. Evidence of technology as a tool for competitive advantage becomes more evident as time passes and the gap between the tech savvy and ludites widens.
Utilization of new tech remains an expensive corporate challenge because it requires integration with existing systems and does not replace the operations of legacy systems without a major IT overhaul to IP.
Competitive advantage can still be gained using technology, if its used by marketing, customer services and business operation jointly and effectively, with a ‘unified, customer facing’ effort, to deliver optimal customer value. The tech buyer is now more sophisticated, demanding and risk adverse. Projects typically must be low time/ low resource/ high value/ high ROI low cost/ low risk to be approved regardless of the company size.
OpenSource is the solution for many eBusiness requirements
Right now, open source code solutions are replacing expensive closed code applications and programmers are available for $ 5.00 per hour in India.
Click here to learn more about open source, open source solutions, open source services and open source security
