E-Business 2.0: Roadmap for Success

Most e-business books don't get into the IT implementation side. They often gloss over the details and difficulties associated with what it takes to get it done. E-Business is not all about strategies and business models, it is about implementation and careful execution - one project at a time. This is more true in Fortune 2000 companies, which are just coming off large ERP implementations. They are all worried about how to leverage the ERP investment. The new-age gurus and consultants are telling them to junk everything in the race to e-business. This advice may work for some but for most it will lead to disaster. This book really asks and answers fundamental questions, how do you systematically invest in building an integrated e-business infrastructure. What pieces do you invest in and how do you sequence your decisions when each framework (CRM, supply-chain etc.) take 3 years to implement. The key point that I got out of this book is that e-business is a journey that requires tremendous commitment especially in a large firm. Managers who are after e-business better understand what it takes to build rock-solid applications.

Number of reviews this book received is an indicator, e-Business is one biggest challange all sorts of companies are facing now. I enjoyed reading the book, agreed with most, disagreed some, and definetely learned lot. It may not be perfect but definetely the best e-Business book in market. My investment in time and money paid of as good as Nasdaq. Authors covered all ERP modules in detail, a great tutorial for a novice. Also, they carefully reviewed integration problems, and pitfalls of home grown software, but they left the interface of the packaged software to the owner. In my opinion this book is a good reading for all, beginner and expert. It state clear definitions of e-Commerce, e-Business, CRM, etc. I also enjoyed reading the book reviews here. It is interesting to see diversity which is good. I don't know if authors could reply to reviews? I promise you that big-dumb companies (as one reviewer attributes) did not grow big by being dumb, and they will not all become big.dot companies. Although they are investigating into e-Business, there will be t- businesses here years to come. At least until "Jetson's" life style become a reality. SAP is given as an example throughout the book possibly because SAP has largest market share in ERP, and is actively working towards bringing e-Business solutions. And may be because authors have experience in using the SAP, just like most consultants are. And yes, there is an area (or module) the authors did not cover is PP-PI which is production planning. PP will be the most difficult part of business to integrate into e-business. I gave this book five star and anxiously waiting for a new addition. BTW, wouldn't be great to hire that 5th grader who can write a five star books?

This book makes excellent points about the importance of thinking about application frameworks, not isolated apps. The thing that I learned from this book was that large companies need to make their investments in app. frameworks -- integrated set of interlocking applications -- very carefully. This is especially true for companies moving to e-business. The book does have its flaws. But, all in all as a first book on e-business application infrastructure it is an excellent one. It tells the story extremely well and is a handy reference. I hope that the authors are going to put out a second edition soon. A lot has changed in the last year since the book has been published. It would be good if the authors updated the book and added more chapters like Application Service Providers (ASP) and also a chapter on implementation issues/challenges. They can title the next edition "e-business 2.0" :-)

This book is not for entrepreneurs who are racing to build new companies. The authors are mostly talking about how to take "big dumb companies" and turn them into "big dot com" companies. The issues that large companies have to deal with are often very different from the small startups who have no baggage to carry. The authors do a good job of identifying the challenges in the creation of an Integrated Back-Office, a critical requirement for e-commerce.

In world of fads, acronyms and new buzz-words, IT managers don't have the time to dig through the hype to figure out what is real and what isn't. As a result, they are often confused (sometimes intentionally by vendors/consultants). Confusion is a serious problem when you are making multi-million dollar investment decisions that can either make or break your enterprise. e-Business is not about throwing up a good looking website. e-Business is about architecting a mission-critical back-office to support the end-to-end transactions and providing an integrated customer experience. Creating a 24x7 integrated back-office isn't easy. Most e-business projects fail here.This book helped me get a clearer picture of the issues that I am dealing with every day as a CIO. The book systematically builds the e-business investment landscape and then delves into each major application framework. This book is certainly something every e-biz implementation person should read.