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Chapter 5 E-business strategy 273

High potential Strategic
(Beware) (Attack)

of High • • Electronic catalogue • • Procurement system
E-commerce system
importance systems • Customer intelligence • Distribution systems
Stock control system
and CRM systems

strategic information

Support
Future Low • HR systems Key operational
(Safe)
(Explore)
• Finance systems • Production line systems

Low High

Current strategic importance of
information systems

Summary applications of a portfolio analysis for an example B2B
Figure 5.7
company

Of course, the analysis will differ greatly according to the type of company; for a professional
services company or a software company, its staff will be an important resource, hence sys-
tems that facilitate the acquisition and retention of quality staff will be strategic applications.
Portfolio analysis is also often used to select the most appropriate future Internet projects. It
is applied in this way in the strategy definition section: Decision 1: E-business channel priorities.
A weakness of the portfolio analysis approach is that today applications are delivered by a
single e-business software or enterprise resource planning application. Given this, it is per-

haps more appropriate to define the services that will be delivered to external and internal
customers through deploying information systems.
E-consultancy (2008a) uses a form of portfolio analysis as the basis for benchmarking
current e-commerce capabilities and identifying strategic priorities. The six areas for bench-
marking are:
1 Digital channel strategy. The development of a clear strategy including situation analysis,
goal setting, identification of key target markets and audience and identification of prior-
ities for development of online services as described in this chapter and Chapter 8.
2 Online customer acquisition. Strategies for gaining new customers online using alternative
digital media channels shown in Figure 9.6, including search engine marketing, partner
marketing and display advertising.
3 Online customer conversion and experience. Approaches to improve online service levels
and increase conversion to sales or other online outcomes.
4 Customer development and growth. Strategies to encourage visitors and customers to
continue using online services using tactics such as e-mail marketing and personalization.