e-commerce

are you destined to be master or slave?

on this page

> four key agendas
> five key issues for e-commerce and e-business
> how can we help you
> recommended hot links to other sites

related pages on this website

> design approaches for dotcom
> competition
> systems engineering for business process change
> component-based business

home page contact us

recent news items

	Lloyds TSB announces a standalone European internet bank, Evolvebank, and will spend an extra £150m “to make it a leader on the web”. Claims it will be the lowest cost bank in the world.
	CGU will invest an initial £40m in a home moving “portal”. Will build a database of 180,000 properties from more than 3,000 estate agents, representing 50% of the UK market. Will offer searching and ranking against the database, photographs, email or wap notification of newly available homes. Will arrange mortgages and organize moving house.
	Halifax is applying for a patent for the design of its internet banking products and services. It claims that its combination of product and software is unique.
	Ellis & Everard, the world’s fourth largest chemicals distributor, is to close nearly half its UK warehouses as a result of moving business on to the internet.

four key agendas

	User agenda	We've got ourselves a website. What happens next?
	Government agenda	We want to get all companies, however small, into the e-business world. (Whaddya mean, we should get our own act together first?)
	Vendor agenda	Buy our enabling tools and/or our professional design services, and you could be the next e-business success story.
	Media agenda	It's a lottery. Lots of people throwing away relatively small amounts of money. A few people getting very rich, at least on paper. And not much going to good causes.

five key issues

1	Business strategy	E-commerce changes the basis of competition. Emerging patterns of enterprise and organization. Implications for IT.	white paper (pdf)
2	Business process	Most e-commerce ventures are flawed. Poor business processes result in customer frustration and dissatisfaction. Importance of integrating e-commerce processes with regular business processes. Implications for IT.
3	Business risk	New dangers of e-commerce - new patterns of fraud, malice and mischief, new modes of system failure.
4	Trust and authenticity	New ways of managing relationships with customers and business partners, with many implications including legal, commercial risk and marketing.
5	Identity	New ways of identifying customers - individuals instead of large corporations, individuals as members of friendship circles, and so on. Implications for IT, especially data management.

how can we help you?

	*strategy*	*process*	*risk*	*relationships*	*identity*
*accurate* *assessment*	is your ebusiness strategy aligned with market trends?	does your ecommerce process truly support your business strategy?	are you aware of the key risks of what you're doing?	how solid are your partnerships and alliances?	do traditional notions of CUSTOMER constrain business opportunity?
*pointed* *planning*	when will your business (industry, sector) be ready for ecommerce?	how can you integrate ecommerce with the rest of your business?	how can you get a good balance between caution and venture?	how can you get a good balance between trust and self-interest?	how can we rethink your customers?
*focused* *fix*	how can we seize new business opportunities?	how can we fix the holes in your ecommerce process?	how can we protect your ecommerce process from failure and fraud?	how might you renegotiate key alliances and contracts?	how can we bridge new business opportunities with existing customer databases?
*intelligent* *implementation*	how can we build new business capabilities?	how do you drive an economic return from your ecommerce process?	how can we convert risk into benefit?	how can we build trust across business networks and supply chains?	how can you build more flexible data structures to support new kinds of customer?
*opportune* *overhaul*	and must we transform the whole business strategy?	and must we transform the whole business process?	and must we transform the management of risk and opportunity?	and must we transform relationships with business partners?	and must we transform relationships with customers?

accurate
assessment We usually start with a short assessment. More detailed assessments may prove necessary at a later stage.

pointed
planning Some consultants see planning simply as the definition of a solution, and a schedule for implementing the solution.
Planning also identifies the factors that must be balanced in the solution, and the tactics for keeping these factors in balance over time.

focused
fix Some consultants will try to make you believe that the assessment and planning processes will automatically generate some quick wins. (Of course, they're not stupid enough to make any guarantees.)
We don't expect to find any quick wins by simple straight-line thinking. Our clients are mostly intelligent and diligent enough to have already found and harvested all these opportunities. If there are any quick wins left to be exploited, they will require a fresh perspective.

intelligent
implementation The implementation of a plan may take an extended period. We may take various roles, from active participation to mentoring and occasional review.

opportune
overhaul Some consultants will insist that you start with a top-down "strategic" plan of the whole enterprise. The danger with this approach is that either it is too superficial to be valid, or it takes too long and is out-of-date before it is half-way through.
We believe that this is an activity that should go on all the time, in parallel with other activities. It requires understanding, inhouse capability, and a degree of trust. Our clients typically involve us in this activity when they feel ready to do so, often after some joint work in other areas.

hot links

Here are some other sites discussing e-commerce and e-business issues.

	www.e-centre.org.uk	UK-based organization, claiming to represent over 16,000 members.
	www.cabinet-office.gov.uk /innovation/1999/ecommerce/index.htm	UK government position paper on e-business and related topics. Titled e-commerce@its.best.uk.
	www.electronicmarkets.org	Electronic Markets Journal. In particular, take a look at a 1998 paper on Business Models for Electronic Markets by Paul Timmers. (He's a big cheese in the European Commission.)
	www.wired.com	The online version of Wired magazine. Racy and well-informed.

top

home page

	accurate assessment	We usually start with a short assessment. More detailed assessments may prove necessary at a later stage.
	pointed planning	Some consultants see planning simply as the definition of a solution, and a schedule for implementing the solution. Planning also identifies the factors that must be balanced in the solution, and the tactics for keeping these factors in balance over time.
	focused fix	Some consultants will try to make you believe that the assessment and planning processes will automatically generate some quick wins. (Of course, they're not stupid enough to make any guarantees.) We don't expect to find any quick wins by simple straight-line thinking. Our clients are mostly intelligent and diligent enough to have already found and harvested all these opportunities. If there are any quick wins left to be exploited, they will require a fresh perspective.
	intelligent implementation	The implementation of a plan may take an extended period. We may take various roles, from active participation to mentoring and occasional review.
	opportune overhaul	Some consultants will insist that you start with a top-down "strategic" plan of the whole enterprise. The danger with this approach is that either it is too superficial to be valid, or it takes too long and is out-of-date before it is half-way through. We believe that this is an activity that should go on all the time, in parallel with other activities. It requires understanding, inhouse capability, and a degree of trust. Our clients typically involve us in this activity when they feel ready to do so, often after some joint work in other areas.