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Application of Internet and
World Wide Web technologies could lead to a radical revision
of the business environment. This is widely claimed and much
talked about, but what exactly is the revolutionary possibility
of the Internet, beyond current applications? What are the barriers
to achieving these changes? And how does one set about using
the Internet to enable a whole new order?
Defining and implementing these
fundamental changes is a challenge that lies ahead for all firms,
but first they need to understand the technologies, their potential
and the implications. Cheshire Henbury's aim is to help companies
achieve this understanding.
At the moment the dominant
use of the Internet is email, while the World Wide Web (part
of the Internet) can be seen as a vast and ever growing source
of information (for the most part highly disorganized and unstructured).
These current applications are best described as e-communications
and e-information respectively. Yet the buzzword of the moment
is electronic commerce (also know as e-commerce).
The UK Department of trade
and Industry's (DTI) definition of electronic commerce is "any
form of business transaction carried out electronically over
public telephone systems". The European Commission similarly
has a broad definition of electronic commerce – "any
form of business transaction in which the parties interact electronically
rather than by physical exchanges or contacts". While both
definitions cover the whole scope of business activities, in
reality electronic commerce usually means buying and selling
via the Internet and the Word Wide Web. And the topic is completely
over hyped, raising unrealistic expectations and promises of
futures that are unlikely to be realized.
What the DTI's and the European Commission's definitions really
point to is what IBM refer to as electronic business (e-business).
At the heart of this is the move away from analogue towards low-cost
digital technology and the linking of individual pieces of technology
(PCs, embedded microprocessor system devices such as set-top
boxes) via networks such as the Internet. Both developments enable
functionality, ways of operating, and opportunities that are
either new or which hitherto have been uneconomic or too difficult
to achieve.
This broader definition has
more profound impacts than electronic commerce in the narrow
sense of buying and selling via the Internet. E-business potentially
impacts products, business processes, strategies, and relationships
with customers, suppliers, distributors and competitors. It also
has the potential to blur the boundaries between industries and
create new industries and sectors.
Cheshire Henbury's interest
and focus are on e-business, and not just this narrow concept
of Internet-based buying and selling. Our concern is to examine
the topic from the perspective of changes to products as well
as methods of working that are enabled by computer and communications
technologies. We believe that it is necessary to examine how
convergence between embedded systems and Internet technologies
will enable new products and services, for example, energy management,
home automation and remote monitoring by manufacturers of their
products once installed on customers premises. New methods of
working such as virtual organizations and remote customer support
for complex products also needed to be considered. And these
are just a few of the issues raised by e-business. Moreover we
believe that it is fundamental that consideration and analysis
of the strategic, organizational, human resource and supply/distribution
issues raised by e-business should be undertaken.
All businesses will be affected
in someway by e-business. However, those that are most successful
at applying the technologies will be ones that undertake effective
technology management. This simply means developing the ability
to identify and implement new strategies, and to handle the organizational,
human, supply chain and distribution issues, and to redefine
their products and services. |