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.