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Venture capitalists who invest in the
e-business sector consider “execution” a key
investment criterion that they use in deal-making.
They define execution as the ability of an
e-business management team to successfully implement
their business model with efficiency and
effectiveness. In the context of the recent shakeout
in the dot-com sector of e-business, it is becoming
critically important to differentiate between
ventures that fail because of ineffective business
models and those that fail because of poor
implementation and suboptimal execution strategies.
In determining an appropriate implementation
strategy, managers of e-businesses have to make many
critical decisions pertaining to how they wish to
spend their scarce resources and the timing and
nature of their execution activities.
The
two cases of this Part provide a rich contextual
backdrop to the analysis of such implementation
decisions. The Priceline.com case presents the
context of an e-business that is widely acknowledged
as having an innovative and powerful business model
that it tried to implement in various application
contexts. The Boo.com case emphasizes the importance
of carefully balancing and timing technical
development and market development activities in
e-business implementation.
The
readings of this Part provide a conceptual model for
understanding the critical implementation issues,
especially in terms of lessons that are to be
learned from failed attempts at implementing
e-business models. They suggest that more attention
needs to be paid to implementation issues early in
the initial conceptualization and strategic planning
of an e-business venture. Other issues of importance
in e-business implementation include the role of top
management, project management considerations, and
the relevance of market conditions and timing. As
both the Priceline.com and the Boo.com cases
represent the context of e-business startup
ventures, issues pertaining to e-business
implementation in large corporate organizations can
be explored using the Den norske Bank case study
that is included in Theme 3 of this book.
J. Dhaliwal, A. Persaud, and A.
Sorensen, “An exploratory study of decision making
contingencies and alignment in electronic commerce
venture deal making,” Proceedings of the Asia
Pacific Decision Sciences Institute (DSI)
Conference, Singapore, July 18–21, 2001.
Reading 1: Anders
(2001) |