Page 358 - E-Bussiness and E-Commerce Management Strategy, Implementation, and Practice

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Chapter 5 E-business strategy 325

Exercises Self-assessment questions
1 What are the key characteristics of an e-business strategy model?
2 Select a retailer or manufacturer of your choice and describe what the main
elements of its situation analysis should comprise.
3 For the same retailer or manufacturer suggest different methods and metrics for
defining e-business objectives.
4 For the same retailer or manufacturer assess different strategic options to adopt for
e-business.
Essay and discussion questions

1 Evaluate the range of restructuring options for an existing ‘bricks-and-mortar’
organization to move to ‘bricks-and-clicks’ or ‘clicks-only’ contributing a higher
online revenue.
2 Explain the main strategy definition options or decisions available to an organiz-
ation intending to become an e-business.
3 Between 1994 and 1999 Amazon lost more than $500m, but at the end of this
period its valuation was still more than $20bn. At the start of 2000 Amazon.com
underwent its first round of job cuts, sacking 150 staff or 2 per cent of its world-
wide workforce. Later in 2000 its valuation dropped to less than half.
Write an essay on the strategy of Amazon.com exploring its history, different
criteria for success and its future. See the Wired Magazine archive for profiles of
Amazon (www.wired.com).
4 Analyse the reasons for the failure of the original boo.com. Research and assess
the sustainability of the new boo.com business model.
5 What can existing businesses learn from the business approaches of the dot-com
organizations?
6 What are the similarities and differences between the concepts of business
process re-engineering (BPR) and e-business? Will the e-business concept face
the same fate as BPR?
7 Discuss this statement by David Weymouth, Barclays Bank chief information officer
(Simons, 2000b):
There is no merit in becoming a dot-com business. Within five years successful
businesses will have embraced and deployed at real-scale across the whole enter-
prise, the processes and technologies that we now know as dot-com.
8 Compare and contrast different approaches to developing e-business strategy.

Examination questions
1 Define the main elements of an e-business strategy.
2 You are the incumbent e-business manager for a domestic airline. What process
would you use to create objectives for the organization? Suggest three typical
objectives and how you would measure them.
3 Explain the productivity paradox and its implications for managers.
4 What choices do executives have for the scope and timeframe of implementing
e-business?