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This Part focuses on the operational
challenges involved in managing e-business
operations. The first case describes the situation
of an e-business startup in the business-to-consumer
retailing area. It focuses on the operational
challenges the company faced with dealing with its
third-party warehousing and distribution partner and
the challenges of trying to manage complex business
operations with a skeletal combination of staff. It
also draws attention to the multidisciplinary set of
skills that are brought to bear on the operations
side of business operations: merchandising,
marketing, inventory management, financial
management, and distribution management. It also
shows that while e-businesses may overcome the
problems associated with the silo orientations of
traditional businesses, this does not mean that they
are immune to the cross-functional disagreements and
tensions that characterize business operations in
the old economy. This lends support to the argument
that the business-model innovations of e-business
need to be complemented with organizational and
operational innovations as well. The case also
emphasizes the importance of order fulfillment and
logistics as key issues for success in e-retailing.
The
second case considers the operational rollout of
e-business at a large banking organization with a
long history of corporate success. It poses
questions such as who should take responsibility for
e-business planning, coordination, implementation,
and operations in a large corporate hierarchy
organized into strategic business units along the
dimensions of traditional banking processes. This
case also provides the context for exploring the
role of the corporate information technology unit in
e-business planning and implementation as well as
traditional line versus staff functional roles;
discusses a set of critical success factors that
were found to be instrumental to the deployment of
e-business operations; highlights the managerial
challenges faced by e-business executives in
carrying out their operations; and provides a good
basis for analyzing how large companies can organize
themselves to harness the entrepreneurial energies
of e-business startup ventures in an effort to
experiment with e-business models while sheltering
their click-and-brick businesses and brands. This is
an area of growing importance for 21st century
management that emphasizes business innovation; it
is often termed corporate entrepreneurship or
intrapreneurship. The case provides a rich
background for exploring the link between e-business
strategy and the operational implementation of
e-business in the form of specific e-initiatives.
The
readings provide background material and conceptual
ideas that can be explored within the contexts of
the cases. Key concepts that should be considered
include the key drivers impacting e-business
operations, synchronization of business processes,
order fulfillment planning, virtual warehousing and
inventory management, and distributed and partner
fulfillment operations. The cases should also be
used to understand the operational implications of
the shift from the traditional “buy-hold-sell”
to the new “sell-source-ship” model for
e-business operations.
Reading 1: Barua,
Konana, Whinston & Yin (2000)
Reading 2: Ricker
& Kalakota (1999) |