Management issues regarding e-commerce and the internet: 20 critical questions managers should ask before plunging into e-commerce!

The drivers for electronic commerce are both technological (under the tremendous pressure of innovation) and business oriented. The authors have found technological issues drive most industrialists, with the business drivers being vague. However both technology and business drivers should play an important part. As Cathy Benko (Deloitte consulting) had said, “for more than two centuries the industrial business model has used a single linear approach to change, predict what customers will want, design resources and organize people to serve those wants, then implement according to management’s plan and design. Today this model of Predict-design-implement is no longer viable- in fact, it is dead.” [ 11 This paper will identify managerial issues regarding ecommerce and the Internet. Chan and Swatmann [2] noted that management involvement is imperative for the success of electronic commerce implementation. The size and popularity of the lntemet have grown enormously during the past few years and continue to grow at phenomenal rates. The risk of entering ecommerce is many and it is important that the issues are understood. This paper has identified the issues, which need to be considered and 20 key questions, which need to be addressed before entering into ecommerce.