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Practical
eBusiness Competitive Advantage Through IT and eBusiness; a Guide for Irish Managers Background Hello and a very warm welcome! You may be asking yourself; where did all this advice come from? You might wonder if the issues and approaches in this guide originated from some “Ivory Tower”, untouched by commercial reality. Rest assured that the advice in this guide is based on the bitter and sweet eBusiness experiences of a large number of real life Irish companies. How did we track down and document the advice? Here’s the background......... Enterprise Ireland ran a grant scheme, called the eBusiness Acceleration Fund. This was one of a range of initiatives taken in support of the Information Society Action Plan and was financed by a special Government budget allocation. The purpose of the scheme was to support companies that implemented eBusiness projects, so that other companies would also be encouraged to be pro-active about IT investment and eBusiness. Enterprise Ireland must extend its thanks to the Department of Finance and the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment for assistance in securing the funding. We also want to thank the IDA, Shannon Development and Udaras na Gaeltachta for help in running the scheme. The participating companies agreed to share their experiences - the good and the bad - for the benefit of others. In the end, over 80 companies proceeded with significant eBusiness investment. To document their experiences and “bank” the knowledge gained for others, we commissioned formal case studies on many of the companies. The majority of these case studies took the form of an indepth analysis, going into the “nitty gritty” with questions such as how they planned it, what went right and what went wrong, how much it cost etc. Many of these detailed case studies are accessible on the CD. A key element of the research was to document the advice that these business people would give to others embarking on eBusiness projects. It may surprise you that much of the advice that transpired was not related to technical issues but to the management of people and processes. Although some of the advice seems basic, many very well-managed companies still failed to observe it. As you will see the projects ran very late and naturally this delayed writing the case studies - not all made it on to the CD but they will be on the Enterprise Ireland website. Enterprise Ireland also commissioned consultants to talk to almost all the non case study companies which received funding to derive any additional learning points from their experiences. IT consultants who had worked on Acceleration Fund projects were also interviewed. As if that wasn’t enough, we also commissioned the development of a series of “How To” Guides on eBusiness topics (these are on the CD and more will be on the website). Obviously, Enterprise Ireland itself, also talked extensively to Fund participants. And now to the writing of the guide............ Armed with all of this information, a writing team took on the task of pulling this guide together. This team comprised of a journalist who had worked in an Internet company, a small business owner who feels she has lived and survived (!) many of the ups & downs shared by the case study companies, and an Enterprise Ireland executive with an eBusiness related Masters degree and more years (decades?) experience than he cares to remember of dealing with small businesses. None of the team members are IT professionals but they did have access to expert advice. While the Acceleration Fund was focussed on looking at how people could use Internet technologies, we learned that you really need to look at internal IT systems and electronics links with customers and suppliers (Internet based or otherwise) in a holistic fashion. Much (although not all) of the advice applicable to Internet -oriented eBusiness also applies to internal IT projects, so this guide really covers both. We do not claim to have all the answers. eBusiness is most certainly not an exact science - in some case what is valid for most companies may be the wrong thing for you. You will still have to do a lot of deep thinking and make up your own mind. However, this guide should guide you through the process and at least help you to address potential issues before they become problematic. Finally, we would like to say a very special word of thanks to all the companies who have shared their experiences with us and with our consultants. They spent a lot of time answering questions and proofreading case studies. We are fortunate that many have been remarkably frank about their problems and mistakes. Without them, the research on which this guide is based would not have been possible. |
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