Strategy – Solutions – Implementation

A broad range of experience and expertise backs our matrix management solutions approach to your complex online business needs. We combine strategy, design and implementation into a process that provides you with timely and economic E-Business solutions.

Strategic Planning

Our philosophy and approach to Strategic E-Business Planning follows:

• Introduction
• Strategy Defined
• What is an E-Business Strategy?
• Why Develop an E-Business Strategy?
• Strategy is a Process
• Our Method
• Client Team Participation
• Benefits
• E-Business

Introduction

The use of information technology has become pervasive throughout organizations everywhere. And yet, the demand for newer, better, faster technology is not receding. Organizations are asking:

• How can we align our information technology with our business strategy and goals?
• What technologies should we deploy over the next 18-24 months?
• How can we deliver technology faster with higher quality and greater customer satisfaction?
• What should our technology architecture be?
• What are our technology priorities and how should we allocate resources and funds?
• How should our information technology function be organized and managed?  
• In short, what is our E-Business strategy?

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Strategy Defined

In recent years the word strategy has been overused in a wide-variety of business contexts to the point of almost becoming content-free. However, here are several definitions we find useful:

• Simply put, strategy is a way to get from here to there.
• Strategy defines how you get from "where you are today" to "where you want to go".
• A formal definition is that strategy is the pattern or plan that integrates an organization’s major goals, policies, and action sequences into a cohesive whole.  A strategy allocates an organization’s resources into a unique and viable posture based on relative internal strength’s and weaknesses, anticipated changes in the external environment. 
• And finally, strategy is a match between what an organizations "can do" versus what it "might do".

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What is an E-Business Strategy?

An E-Business Strategy sets out how information technology will be used across an enterprise in the future. It describes how information technology will support the enterprise’s mission, goals and objectives, thereby, aligning technology with the business direction.

An E-Business Strategy considers the changes an enterprise is facing -- both internally and externally -- and the potential business opportunities available to it. Business opportunities might include ways to use technology to gain competitive advantage, to reduce cost, increase revenue, etc.  Business opportunities are weighted against the strengths and weaknesses of the current Business environment – both technologically and organizationally – to determine what E-Business strategy to pursue.

An E-Business Strategy lays out the broad directions that the Business must pursue, the IT architecture necessary to achieve the strategy and the specific projects necessary for implementing the architecture and resulting business opportunities. The strategy also lays out the degree of change required of the overall organization – business vision, style, structure, staffing, skills, processes – which is necessary to achieve the strategy.

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Why Develop an E-Business Strategy?

Why should an enterprise undertake the development of an E-Business Strategy?   Reasons include:

Environmental Change – The Internet Has Changed Everything. The standard of the way to do business has changed dramatically and will continue to change for the foreseeable future.

Performance Gap - There is recognition, usually by business management, that business performance needs improvement.

Technological Change - The enterprise requires new architectures to accommodate deployment of new technologies and remain competitive and realize saving inherent in the new technology.

Organizational Change - The business function requires a change due to a reorganization, expansion, a merger, an acquisition or downsizing.

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Strategy is a Process

Because of the pressures of global competition and the rapidly evolving nature of information technology demands that strategy should be an on-going process.   Strategy is not a document, but is a process.  And strategy formation is the joint responsibility of the overall organization and the business and its E-Business Partners. 

Our approach establishes strategy as an on-going process including establishing organizational roles, responsibilities and processes.

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Our Method

We use a proven method for developing E-Business Strategies based on well-founded best-in-class strategic planning principles. Our three-phased approach to developing an E-Business Strategy answers the following questions:

Phase I. Where are we today?

• How well does our current business capabilities meet the needs of the organization?
• How does our business capability compare to that of our competitors?
• What are the trends in technology and which should we follow?

Phase II. Where do we want to go?

• What is our business direction?
• What are our opportunities to take advantage of technology?
• What should our broad E-Business strategy be?
• What are the E-Business architectures required?
• What governance to we need between E-Business partners and the business?

Phase III. How do we get there?

• What is the gap between where we are and where we want to go?
• What are the initiatives and projects required to close the gap?
• What changes need to be made to our E-Business capabilities and organization to close the gap?

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Client Team Participation

EICEPower uses a process consulting orientation to guide our clients through the three strategic planning phases. We emphasize client participation throughout by utilizing structured workshops as the primary forum for developing the strategy. The workshops promote organizational learning and build a team consensus and momentum toward the strategy and its deployment.

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Benefits

The benefits of an E-Business Strategic Plan developed using the eICEPower Method include:

• Positions the company to make a "strategic" step by step approach to the company’s E-Initiatives
• Aligns E-Business with business direction in three ways:
1. 1. Achieves coordination, perseverance and concentration of overall effort toward a shared set of business goals and objectives. 2. Aligns the uses and directions of each department with each other 3. Aligns company with the needs of external customers
• Builds consensus and commitment to the plan because all key stakeholders – individuals, departments, customers and owners -- are involved in the process.
• Establishes an E-Business strategic planning mindset into the company’s culture.
• Provides a blueprint for deploying the strategy and achieving success.
• Builds momentum toward implementing the plan and realizing the intended value from all areas of change.

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© 2000
eICEPower
525 Technology Park, Suite 109, Lake Mary, FL 32746
Phone: 800-229-2881
e-mail: sales@eicepower.com