Dataquest : Top Stories : E-ENABLEMENT: The Enterprise Gets E-ready

E-ENABLEMENT: The Enterprise Gets E-ready

E-enablement has today become critical for the survival of any business. But enterprises need to strategize carefully and beware of the risks involved before they jump on to the Web bandwagon

Shweta Verma

Thursday, February 22, 2001

Here’s a questionnaire for your enterprise:

Does it take so long to upgrade your systems that by the time it is done, you need to start working on the next upgrade?
Is information difficult to find, access and manage?
Are security problems getting worse instead of better?
Are maintenance and ownership costs getting out of hand?
Is the need to streamline internal processes becoming increasingly urgent?
Are you unable to manage your network remotely?
Are your system administrators spending most of their time fixing things that don’t work, instead of adding new functionality?

If you answered yes to a majority of these questions, your network isn’t e-ready, and it’s time you thought about Web-enabling your enterprise lest you lost out to a more Internet-savvy competitor.

The new economy enterprise has to realize the urgency to be Web-enabled, the sooner the better. "It’s time for all enterprises to get cracking with their e-strategies. If you haven’t started as yet, you are already late," says Sanjay Jain, Partner, NetAcross.

Towards a complete e-enterprise

The process of e-enablement of any enterprise is not merely about having a Web presence. It has evolved over the years to include many more features that would transform the entire business. A complete e-enterprise has to be ready for supply chain management (SCM), customer relationship management (CRM), enterprise resource planning (ERP) and many knowledge management and infrastructure management disciplines. A global survey conducted by IDC indicates that while 65% corporates have created Web sites, only 30% of those sites are e-com enabled.

The E-strategy
A complete e-business strategy should include:
Vision	How and to what extent you want to transform your business through e-enablement
Leader	The business leader or group of leaders who will be responsible for implementing the plans
Plan	An plan or architecture that incorporates information, processes, infrastructure, partners and people
Implementation	A realistic step-by-step strategy to implement the plan
Sourcing Strategy	From where to source the requisite skill set, people and infrastructure to fulfil the plan
Risk Management	Learn from your experience, identify the risks and work out how you will manage them
Business Model	Identify the sources of revenue and cost structure to support your plan.

However, if your organisation is among the large IT-savvy enterprises, you would have already automated your internal business processes through ERP software such as SAP, Baan or ESS. Vijay Sethi, GM, business solutions, IT, Ranbaxy, explains that since Ranbaxy had already invested in SAP, it had to spend only about Rs 25 lakh on extending its functionality for the Web. Most ERP vendors today offer supply chain functionality in addition to transactional functionality. According to a Nasscom study in India, the most commonly found business practice is to establish extranets or EDI infrastructure for an initial or learning period. This is subsequently upgraded to Internet-based access mechanisms for the supply chain. A global study conducted by Gartner Group says that by 2004, 90% of enterprises that fail to apply SCM technology and processes will lose preferred supplier status and thus profitability.

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