The Imperatives Of E-business: Case Study Of A Failed Project

摘要

To stay competitive and improve responsiveness to changing customer demands, organizations have to think about more creative ways of using and integrating technology into their business processes (Czuchry and Yasin, 2003; Birkhofer et al., 2000). However, due to the complex nature of many e-business initiatives and a failure to take a holistic view of the impact of technology on organizational life, many of these initiatives fail (Doherty and McAulay, 2002). This paper will take a critical view of a recent e-business initiative (referred to in this paper as "eCRM") undertaken by a global technology solutions organization. The initiative was designed to link the sales, marketing, fulfilment, manufacturing, and distribution systems together in order to reduce supply chain stock levels, increase responsiveness to customer demands, and increase profit margins by providing a direct link to customers (circumventing business partners for some product lines). Unfortunately, after significant financial investment (approx $300M USD), and three years of development, the project was deemed a failure. The eCRM project was downgraded and re-focused on simply delivering a web-interface for on-line sales and product enquiry. The program failed to deliver against its original objectives but we can learn certain lessons that have resulted in the development of an e-business strategy framework. It is the contention of the author that this framework should be considered by organizations for their future complex e-business initiatives.