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Advanced
How To Guide
Formulating an IT/eBusiness strategy for SMEs
3 . Factors to consider
The following sections outline some of the issues
to be considered when formulating your strategy.
3.01 Customer IT Demands
For some companies, meeting the specified electronic
trading requirements of a small pool of key customers
is a key, or indeed the main factor, determining their
ICT strategy. If you are in this situation, do not let
the focus on meeting the clients' demands blind you
to the possibility that additional capabilities may
be worthwhile.
Many
large companies already operate systems in which orders
for parts needed to replenish stock or to meet planned
production schedules are not placed by phone call or
fax, but are sent electronically. They are generated,
not by a human supervisor, but by an electronic control
system that recognises that stocks need to be topped
up and alerts the supplier accordingly.
At
present, such systems are mainly confined to transactions between large commercial
companies and their larger suppliers. However, this is set to change and more
and more customers will demand increasingly sophisticated capabilities from their
suppliers. The facilities needed to handle electronic ordering by large customers
can vary dramatically It is important to be able to meet, not just the current
requirements of your customers, but also their likely future requirements, over
the planned life of your proposed new IT facilities. Hence, determining the likely
future needs of current and potential customers should form part of the ICT strategy
formulation process.
3.02
The Business Environment
Your
ICT strategy should be influenced by an understanding
of your company's changing business environment and
its future strategy. Questions to consider include:
- What
are the current and future key determinants of profitability
and success in your business? Can ICT help you to
achieve these?
- Are
there any trends likely to make your current way
of operation ineffective? For example, greatly reduced
order lead times, increasing product variety or
a far larger number of smaller orders might pose
serious problems for existing manual systems or
older computer systems. So also could plans for
significant growth or a greatly expanded dealer
network. Rather than just reacting to changes in
your industry, is there an opportunity to benefit
by proactively creating them? Could you, for example,
use computers and eBusiness, possibly as part of
an overall business process reengineering effort,
to gain a competitive advantage by offering to handle
far smaller batches or shorter lead times than your
competitors can possibly manage. Would this, or
other changes in the service you provide, allow
you to increase your margins or gain extra business?
VLM's
case study describes how this Dublin company
gained very substantial new business by developing
the ability to efficiently handle large numbers
of small orders.
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