www.sharexxx.net - free books & magazines

Managing the Strategic Alignment of Organizations 79
The developments ahead include many opportunities for organizations and as
such create chances for development managers to deliver unprecedented economic
value to the organizations. There are new social practices world wide that
organizations could embrace in a number of ways. Tools such as Lean Development
and Leadership-Collaboration Management could be used. These all should
challenge the manager to question traditional ways and ensure that the manager
create an e-commerce environment in which the organization can thrive.
BPR has lost some of the impetus and therefore e-commerce and organizational
executives are again concentrating on aligning strategies (technology, economic,
social and corporate). Organization still struggle to align these - especially
to match them all and it seems most of the times as if the two are on opposite ends
of the string. The e-commerce budget is like a hole, but in no way is it ever going
to be filled and also getting the right people for the e-commerce initiative is a
problem. People are always flying off pointing fingers at the e-commerce segment
and this could affect the alignment and planning of the e-commerce strategies and
business strategies. Most of the time, this could cause obsolescence because
participating organizations do not always realize that achieving alignment involves
personal dynamics and some physical dynamics.
ORGANIZATION - E-COMMERCE ALIGNMENT
AND ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL IMPACTS
Aligning business and e-commerce strategies continues to be an important
management issue. The problem is that, according to the Cutter Consortium
(1999), 65 percent of organizations have no e-commerce strategy, while 25
percent of organizations have not yet developed an overall e-commerce strategy.
Only 4.2 percent of the organizations contacted do have an e-commerce strategy.
It is obvious from their figures that most organizations do not take e-commerce
seriously. Once the effect has hit these organizations, it would affect their alignment
decisions. The Cutter Consortium claimed that many organizations have, however,
noted that the role that the Internet can play, but they have not taken the steps
necessary to fully realize its economic potential and again this would affect the
alignment of their strategies should they try to realize these effects. E-commerce will
affect the alignment of the organization and that people do not know what the initial
and eventual affect will be. Technologies, however, affects all organizations - even
the smallest ones. While being able to pose an opportunity, e-commerce also pose
a threat to the organizations and managers need to recognize all the factors (e.g.,
economic and social impacts) that affect e-commerce and e-commerce alignment.
Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written
permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.