Building an E-Business Strategy

Notes

• Information asymmetries exist whenever a company leverages information about markets, customers, or its operations that is unusable or unavailable to its competitors. In the Information Age, customers, suppliers, and competitors share a common flood of business and economic data from multiple communication channels. This information ubiquity pushes business strategists to work even harder to establish “information asymmetries,” whereby they strategically structure competitive relationships characterized by their companies' possession of higher quality information than is held by competitors, customers, and suppliers (Kettinger and Hackbarth, 1999)
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• The idea of “co-opetition,” as it relates to E-business, was introduced by James Moore (1997). Internet-based ecosystems, such as multivendor portals, can create co-opetition, whereby companies cooperate with competitors to offer complementary services or channels, benefiting both parties. In other instances, these same competitors may be important suppliers or customers for a company's products and services. In other business situations, these companies may be fierce competitors. Balancing these complicated relationships requires a business model that has well thought out co-opetition leveraging information asymmetries.
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• It is important to note that even though both the supplier and customer should evaluate the life cycle success of a particular product or service at process step 12 or 13, it is likely that the evaluation procedure is an ongoing activity. For example, if the supplier cannot meet the requirements of a customer, no product or service can be delivered. Thus, a supplier may wish to reconsider the appropriateness of its product or service capabilities in order to induce the customer to buy its product or service. Alternatively, if the customer cannot locate a suitable supplier, the customer may wish to reconsider its purchase requirements or continue to scan the marketplace for a more suitable supplier.
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• The strategic E-breakout method is an archetype incorporating the best concepts of many of the leading E-commerce consulting companies. It was originally developed for instructional purposes in Professor Kettinger's E-business strategy graduate class at the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. It has subsequently been tested and refined in more than 50 E-business strategy development consulting engagements with firms ranging in size from small start-ups to multibillion dollar enterprises.
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