Customer Reviews

Pushing the Digital Frontier: Insights into the Changing Landscape of E-Business

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The Wild West days of the dot-com craze are behind us, but e-business strategy remains a largely uncharted frontier. In fact, e-commerce seems more bewildering than ever, now that many of the strategic maxims that the Internet bubble was built on have been proved false. To help you get a handle on the revolutionary technology that has survived the collapse, Nirmal Pal and Judith M. Ray have collected articles by researchers and executives, including many from their home base, the e-Business Research Center at Pennsylvania State University. This anthology constitutes a solid and well-researched book, which has sufficient gravitas (and jargon) for an academic and enough practical information for an entrepreneur. The multiple authors sometimes overlap as they dissect various e-business approaches, but all offer worthwhile ideas. We [...] recommend this book to executives at any company, since Internet technology is now ubiquitous, and distinctions between old economy and New Economy are fast falling by the wayside.

The various authors examine "key themes" that intersect all manner of changes now occurring during what they characterize as an "information revolution": free agency, compressed supply chains, co-opetition, obliteration of boundaries, e-leadership, the elimination of hierarchies, emergence of electronic marketplaces ("bazaars"), club membership, and finally, "trust brokers" who serve as "an incentive and penalty mechanism to uphold the `digital order' in global, real-time electronic markets." The material is presented and then developed by within 14 chapters. In Chapter 1, for example, Ghadar and Leonard "deliberate on how the digital economy is forcing a fundamental and permanent shift in the way enterprise strategies are developed, and in the process raise significant new challenges for managers. In Chapter 7, Bhargava and Lee "provide valuable insights about emerging technologies and practices that will help organizations remain open and flexible in response to the changing technological environment so that past information technology investments remain useful and valuable in the future." And in the final chapter, Loomis and Gerhard "identify several strategic issues facing executives who must lead or interact within the e-government environment." All manner of forces are driving the expansion and consequent complexity of the "digital frontier" and at an ever-increasing velocity. Here in a single source are a range and diversity of perspectives on this process. The editors are to be commended on the selection and presentation of the 14 separate but inter-related essays. I also appreciate the "About the Contributors" section which identifies dozens of supplementary sources to consult for those to wish to explore specific issues in much greater depth. Those who share my regard for this book are urged to check out Profit from the Core, written by Chris Zook with James Allen, which suggests a number of growth strategies which are also worthy of careful consideration.

This is a wonderful collection of leading edge research and practical advice from experts in the field of e-business, e-commerce, and e-"anything". The authors and editors have created a very timely set of e-business thinking, imperatives, and recommendations, as well as practical and real life examples to cement the concepts. I highly recommend this book!

This is an excellent book on diverse aspects of e-business. The book offers great insights from a collection of experts. There are important nuggets from various topics ranging from e-business metrics to personalization to collaborative commerce to regulatory issues. The book provides useful frameworks for analysing e-business issues. I personally liked the fact that this book is applicable to both old economy and new economy companies. Despite the challenge of synthesizing a wide array of topics, the authors have done a commendable job of integrating the chapters. I highly recommend this book for all managers.