Online Business Is Not Limited To Technological Aspects

The technology is the easy part of the puzzle that makes the successful implementation of e-business.
Strategy is much more challenging aspects of the transformation process, and the most difficult part is the organizational culture - the human factor and changing belief system and behavior of employees and other interested partners.

If you pay too much attention to technology and partially or completely ignore the social dynamics, political interdependence and other non-technical conundrums that have interfered between entities who should use this technology, the result will surely be disastrous implementation. This lesson many dot.com organizations have learned the hardest way possible.

If organizations fail to implement initiatives that will motivate employees to change their behavior so they could be much more willing to cooperate and share knowledge, there is no way that the most successful technology achieve any significant success. Take for example the powerful groupware platforms such as Lotus Notes and Microsoft Exchange. Their primary goal is to share knowledge, but you can count on the fingers of those organizations that these tools in this context can successfully implement.

The technology exists in socio-technical system, in which people are a key component. Even fully automated systems must at some level of its operation depend on the people. If the organization decides to change the technology, it should be ready for decisive change in behavior that surrounds this technology.

Even when running real initiative, speed of technological change will soon multiply to exceed the speed of necessary changes in the organization. Over time, it will be created a gap between what the technology can offer and what the organization can successfully support, taking into account the existing and required organizational culture. Reduction and bridging this gap is the biggest challenge in business transformation that leads to successful e-business.
The message is simple: Take care of the people who believe that the initiative for the implementation of e-business can leave some consequences for them.