E-Business and managing customers

Academics and commentators who have been around long enough to experience different waves of managerial innovation cannot but be impressed with the progress of e-business in companies of all sizes and – in some cases – in the public sector. For despite the warnings of Jeremiahs about progress with e-business in this or that sector or country or in companies of different sizes, there is little doubt that the use of e-business in its various forms is at least as pervasive as one would expect given its relatively early stage of development and the still rapid evolution of e-business technology. This article argues that we now know enough about the benefits of different types of e-business for most types of business to be able to determine with some certainty which aspects of e-business an organisation should adopt, when and even which products and suppliers it should choose. It argues that worries about speed of take up of e-business are exaggerated and that we are just witnessing a normal innovation diffusion curve, in which the time lag between early adopters and laggards is twenly years or more. However, it also argues that research diagnosis of advance is relatively unsophisticated and needs to move ahead to keep up with technological advance. This article starts with definitions of e-business and a summary of what it means for businesses. This is followed by a quick description of a model of e-business adoption. It then argues that modelling has reached a secure enough state for us to be able to predict benefits of adoption with some certainty and to determine a cost-effective way forward for most organisations. It then reviews briefly some evidence about adoption and interprets this in the light of the previous arguments. This article is very definitely an opinion article. It is not based on a comprehensive research programme. Rather, it is based on an interpretation of the masses of private and confidential evidence that flow in the veins of IBM, to which the author has access. It is skewed towards how e-business affects the relationships between companies and their customers.