Volume 17, Number 2 Article by Pradeep Banerjee June, 2005
Future Prospect – Envisioning e-Business in 2020 : By Y Jayachandra and Gita Melkote, Tata McGraw Hill, New Delhi, 2003, pp. 384, Price: Rs. 395 (cloth). :
One of the catalysts of the Information Technology revolution has been the Internet. So pervasive has been the impact of this technology that its usage has been internalised across a cross section of users over a short period of its availability. The absorption of this technology has been quick and definite, and it has moved beyond the great benefits of enabling communications, to enabling development and deployment of the technology to facilitate commerce in a number of ways. The use of this technology has meant the opening up of a whole new way of conducting transactions. A wraparound word for this new world is e-business.
The text under review begins with a rough and ready taxonomy of business organisations. There are structures that have adopted and adapted the e-business processes and thereby have migrated themselves into the zone of ‘dematerialised economy’, while others continue to remain rooted in the zone of ‘material economy’. It is the latter zone that concerns the authors, for they believe it is a disconnected one, and firms that operate rooted in this zone do so on losing terms. The existing relationship between technology and business has come to be altered to a significant extent by what have been termed as ‘de-processes’, which are an outcome of the introduction of new digital technologies. The ‘de-processes’ are a combinatory lot comprising ‘dematerialisation, decontextualisation and deterritorialisation’. They form a part of the new lexicon and are deemed important enough to be brought in in the introduction. The text is written for readers who need to know intimately about this world that no longer lies in the future, but exists in the present, and whose attributes will determine the future. An evaluation of the present is therefore mandatory learning for managers. This book, the authors point out, ‘is about theory and thought behind successful long-range strategic planning of your e-business’, with reference to various aspects of business, not only to the IT section of a firm’s workforce. Co-opting e-business as the ‘operating system of modern business’, the authors describe the process as a revolution not only in technology, materials, machinery, software or speed of business, but ‘a revolution in concepts’. A business unit, as a result, needs to take a relook at its processes and determine those that need to be recast using e-business solutions and those that can remain in the physical format. The way forward is to adopt and adapt the technologies on offer and the e-business models that are available for moulding the business processes of the unit. Any action or inaction on this front can mean a difference between growth and casualty for the unit.
At the beginning of it all is the matter of vision; vision is the rudder that will guide its growth in an uncertain environment. The customers of the firm, the competitors, other actors who constitute the national state, and those beyond the territories of the state, populate this environment. The vision needs to be in sync with the environment; a disconnected vision is undeniably a drag on the firm and its resources. Tied with a vision that envisages roles for the workforce, the partners who work along with the firm and all those resources that are organised by a firm, is the framework of long range strategic planning for realising the vision. The firm, as a going concern, essentially absorbs the technology that impacts the environment and makes it a part of its planning process. This provides a construct to the vision that to begin with was influenced by the environment. The authors consider the internalisation of e-business inputs as a fulcrum point. The other chapters are a follow through based on such a commitment by a firm.
Considered to be at the core of e-business planning, the process of dematerialising, item one of the ‘de-processes’, starts with a business unit taking a re-look at its constitution and differentiating the physical from the non-physical. It is the non-physical, also referred to as the ‘information’ domain, which is of significance in constructing a unit’s e-business, and helps optimise transaction costs, the major cost factor in the operation of business units. It also helps leverage the unit’s online interaction with a gamut of other units. The reach, unconstrained by physical logistics, that is enabled by these IT resource inputs accrues out of deterritorialisation. The location of the other interacting partner – be it a supplier, a customer, or the state representative – becomes unimportant; in the domain of the Internet these partners are close enough in terms of transaction costs. Dematerialising the operations enhances the efficiencies and cost advantages of a business.
The book also presents a review of the available technology in digital infrastructure that helps create a frictionless environment, including those that are in the process of development. A firm, it is pointed out, needs to optimise its operations by adopting a mix of technologies from the public domain, as with information highways or Application Service Providers, and those that are exclusive to and form part of the assets of the firm, including unit-specific software security. This ultimately translates into reduced costs and provides the firm operational advantages in the market.
would be best served by these technologies to upgrade the performance of a firm. A firm needs to look at the value chains that it has and the value chains that it can build up using digital technology. Going beyond the practice of conducting all activities under one roof, the authors recommend strengthening the value chains with interacting partners rather than concentrating on the physical aspects alone. In a digital economy, information is treated as a source of value itself, and the ‘digital value chain’ progresses independently of the ‘physical value chain’. By using inputs of digital technology, a firm can recast its value chains with its partners and redefine its markets on its own terms.
Today, disparate technology applications have, over short periods of time, converged and are now available as unit level applications. The convergence has occurred both at the level of infrastructure, such as high speed Internet, and at the level of end user equipment ranging from telephones to televisions. This development trajectory indicates progressive standardisation of technology that will enable adoption of technology at a cost that is viable for a unit. Next Generation Internet, for instance, is expected to integrate computing and communication facilities. Time and space saving are other important benefits of digital technology, and businesses that lag behind in the adoption of such technology will be at a disadvantage.
The book is extremely focused, and informs the reader on all aspects of the world of e-business, its genesis, its growth, its impact and the shape of things to come as it evolves. The text constructs the world of e-business and, while doing so, constructs a halo effect too. However, it does sound a note of caution (p 238-9), quoting Agre1, who observes that ‘Portrayals of a digital future are too often monolithic: everything will be digital, everyone will be wired, all media will converge into one, and the physical world will wither away. This kind of monolithic story is wrong.’
The book could have been more carefully edited. Several typos and minor mistakes in the text and even in the tables could have been avoided. A shortcoming of the book is that the economic environment under consideration is more often encountered in the developed world, where technology of the type discussed here has been adopted extensively.In the Indian context, the book will prepare entrepreneurs and managers for the coming changes and help them in positioning themselves, while for other readers, it may serve as an introduction to development efforts in areas of technology that have a distinct impact on living.
References 1. Agre, Philip, ‘Designing Genres for New Media’, Cybersociety 2.0, Sage, 1998.
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