Chapter 10 Change management

Self-assessment questions

1. Summarize the main types of change that need to be managed during introduction of e-business.

Business level change – new business processes

Technological change – new systems

Organizational structure change

Organizational culture change

Organizational strategy change

People change – new roles and working practices.

2. What approaches must managers take to achieve change management successfully?

Support from senior management

Education – explain why the system is required by the business and its impact on staff

Involvement – involve employees in specification and testing

Training – explain new procedures and operation of software

Risk management – assessing problems and putting solutions in place.

3. Outline the main stages of a sell-side e-commerce implementation.

Initiation

Analysis/market research

Specification of business objectives and application requirements

Design of solution including selecting implementation platform

Integrate different applications and build interface

Migrate data about customers and products to the system

Test

System live

Maintenance

4. Explain the role of prototyping in developing a sell-side e-commerce solution.

Prototyping is an iterative process where web site users suggest modifications before further prototypes and the live version of the site is developed.

The main benefits are:

It prevents major design or functional errors being made during the construction of the ‘web site’ that may be costly and time-consuming to fix once the site becomes live and may also damage the brand. Such errors will hopefully be identified early on and then corrected.

It involves the team responsible for the web site and ideally the potential audience of the web site in proactively shaping the ‘web site’. This should result in a site that more closely meets the needs of the users.

The iterative approach is intended to be rapid and a site can be produced in a period of months or weeks.

5. Describe four different approaches to retain staff.

Various elements of a benefits package:

Increase remuneration

Training and reskilling

Share options

Pensions, etc.

6. What alternative approaches are there to structuring e-commerce within an organization?

1. A separate operating company, e.g., Prudential and Egg (

2. A separate business unit with independent budgets, e.g., RS Components Internet Trading Company (

3. A separate committee or department manages and coordinates e-commerce, e.g., Derbyshire Building Society (

4. No formal structure for e-commerce, e.g., Many small businesses and the Retail and Engineering Company.

7. Which type of organizational culture is most amenable to e-business-related change?

The four types of culture described in the text are:

1.Survival (outward-looking, flexible) – the external environment plays a significant role (an open system) in governing company strategy. The company will probably be driven by customer demands and will be an innovator. It may have a relatively flat structure.

2.Productivity (outward-looking, ordered) – interfaces with the external environment are well structured and the company is typically sales-driven and is likely to have a hierarchical structure.

3.Human relations (inward-looking, flexible) – this is the organization as family, with interpersonal relations more important than reporting channels, a flatter structure and staff development and empowerment thought important by managers.

4.Stability (inward-looking, ordered) – the environment is essentially ignored, with managers concentrating on internal efficiency and again the company is managed through a hierarchical stucture.

Of these, 1 and 3 are the preferred approaches.

8. What are some of the risks of e-business change, and how can they be managed?

See Table 10.5 (above in activity answers) for a suggested solution.