Web Business Engineering: Using Offline Activities to Drive Internet Strategies (Addison-Wesley Information Technology Series) (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Shows the reader how to use the Internet to serve business needs, not in search of them, with step-by-step instruction on how to identify those needs and create a profitable Web site that adds value to the business. Softcover. DLC: Electronic commerce--Planning.

From the Inside Flap

The idea is not to get as complicated as you can, but to get as much of yourself into it as you can. Music has to go places.
--Jimi Hendrix

In the fall of 1994, I was hired as a faculty member at Carnegie Mellon University's Business School--the Graduate School of Industrial Administration (GSIA). Because the Web was still in its infancy at that time, there were no courses at GSIA, or at any other top business school, that taught systematic methods for effectively using the Web in businesses. So I decided that I would teach such a course. I ran this idea past some of my more senior colleagues, who were less than enthusiastic. A common remark was "The Web is just a fad. It's not going anywhere. We've had the Internet for years." However, having worked as an engineer on the Web's predecessor (Time Warner's Interactive-TV project)--not to mention doing a multiuser Internet adventure game (MUD) as part of my thesis research--I knew the Web was an important technology with potentially far-reaching implications for both consumers and businesses. I therefore set out to create such a course. A year later, I received a grant from the government (DARPA) through Stanford University's Enterprise Integration Technologies program for my Virtual Market Square project. The goal of this project was to train businesses on how to properly use the Web and other Internet technologies. This book is the culmination of four years of research and teaching on the general topic of how to use online technologies effectively in businesses.

I think you will find this book very different from other technical Web or business books you may have read. It is neither a purely technical book that details the latest online technology (such as Dynamic HTML), nor is it purely a business book that examines several cases of successful Web companies (such as Amazon) to present a set of best management practices. The Web as we currently know it is a collection of technologies in flux. As the technologies underlying the Web change, the nature of competition also shifts, so today's successful Web companies may not be successful tomorrow. One need only look at Netscape for an example of how quickly a successful Web company can fall.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not arguing against studying Web technological details or case studies of successful Web companies. Both can provide insights into what a company should be doing on the Web. What I do argue, however, is that a company's most effective strategy for using the Web is typically not found by copying what successful "online" companies are doing but rather by careful analysis of what successful companies are doing offline. The emphasis is not on what successful online companies are doing now but rather on what companies ought to be doing online based on their "offline" activities.

The Web strategy I advocate in this book can be summed up with the following statement: Use offline activities to drive online activities. In short, the activities that a company is doing offline should determine what activities that company does online. If you are a Web entrepreneur thinking of starting your own Web company, the strategy still holds, except you use the offline activities of successful existing companies to drive what you do online. In this manner, business constrains technology, not vice versa. The key is to have some kind of method for effectively analyzing offline activities. This book provides you a systematic method for doing such an analysis.

In closing, I believe the real business uses of the Web have yet to be discovered. This book can help you map out those uses.

020160468XP04062001

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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional; 1st edition (October 13, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 020160468X
• ISBN-13: 978-0201604689
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,076,324 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Web business success by applying business basics, December 9, 2000

By	Charles Ashbacher "([e-mail])" (Marion, Iowa United States([e-mail])) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)

In the arguments about taxation of Internet sales, I am firm in believing that they should be taxed. For some time, I have thought that the only protection that net companies needed was from themselves. Launched without a great deal of forethought, market research or even a viable plan, many of them are now crashing. Business on the Internet is no different that any other business, and since that is the foremost point of this book, it is indeed one that could have made a significant difference if it had been published and read two years ago.
The author, a Professor of Information Systems at Carnegie Mellon, was one of the first professors at a top-ranked school to teach the business uses of the Web. The approach in this book is all business, with Return On Investment (ROI), Net Present Value (NPV) and Internal Rate of Return (IRR) equations being used to make the points. There is not one word of hype in this entire book. If there is one thing that has been so clearly lacking in the explosion of dot-com companies, it has been this lack of management by equation. Guerrilla marketing and fancy ads will get you noticed, but only a positive balance sheet will keep you alive long enough for it to matter.
The remainder of the book covers the modeling of a business constructed on the web using two that he has created, www.datingexpert.com and www.yesnomaybe.com. Both deal with online dating/meeting services and the models of need, perceived value and potential revenue points are "classic" studies in how to plan and execute a business model based on user-generated information. One of the most valuable pointers which shows how much the author truly manages the sites are the data points about how people find the site. For example, on page 177 there is the caption, "Only 1.3 percent of my Web sites' traffic is due to users guessing the site's address." I did find myself wishing that he had shared more information as to how this data was acquired.
While the business models used on the Web are different in degree from those offline, they are not different in kind. The basic rules of business still apply and as the author repeats so many times, it is what you do offline that matters. Lose sight of the business equations and the points where you add value and your company will be another dot.com Titanic.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Refreshing, Business-focused and Candid, September 14, 2001

By	Mike Tarrani "www.tarrani.com" (Deltona, FL USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)

The author provides a business-oriented (and technology-free) approach to engineering an on-line presence that is effective and should set the standard for a methodology for how to go about such projects. This is embodied in a framework that is defined by four principles (1) work is a combination of physical and informational activities, (2) informational work is accomplished by propagating content, (3) valuable and innovative content can be found in existing manual methods, and (4) an on-line strategy should be based on off-line advantages. These principles are simple, yet powerful. They are also not as easy to adhere to as they seem, which becomes apparent when you begin mapping activities in subsequent chapters.

There are so many things I like about this book, so I'll stick with the highlights. First, the differences between the way IT/IS and business units approach projects are carefully examined. Understanding these differences will make or break a web project, and as an IT professional I fully agree with the author that IT is the wrong organizational unit to lead and manage web projects. Their role should be relegated to that of support.

Second, the author leads you through the basics of value chain analysis, business factors and financial analysis. This is an excellent refresher for business professionals and is essential reading for IT professionals, especially those who claim to be business analysts. I learned a great deal from the discussion on ROI, NPV and IRR. These are not new knowledge areas for me, but learning about the fallacies and pitfalls inherent in each approach that can trap you or lead you to bad decisions was priceless.

What I learned the most from was the Quick Primer on Diagnosing Problems and Opportunities. As in the rest of the book the author uses case studies to reinforce the concepts and principles. In this case you are led through a mailing cost analysis and some of the results are surprising. For example, after all of the cost drivers are mapped out on a spreadsheet you play with some variables and discover that commonsense properties of the model do not necessarily act in commonsense ways. Doubling productivity (assuming it is possible to coax such a thing from humans) only yielded a 2.5% reduction in costs. Using cheaper labor actually cost more in the particular model. As an aside, the model was not contrived to create these counter-intuitive results - it is a plain vanilla cost model that you would commonly encounter or build. In this chapter you are introduced to a step-by-step process that shows how to effectively perform a cost analysis and find the true drivers that can be changed to reduce or avoid costs.

A caveat about this book: it can be easily read, but is merely interesting unless you take the time to carefully step through each case. If, however, you take your time and work through the problems and trace the value chains--a tedious task--you will find that this book has many chapters that are profound. That's a strong word, but in my opinion an accurate one. I've applied the approach in this book on a real-life project and can attest that it works extraordinarily well - and that's the highest compliment one can pay to an author.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book with with tons of insightful knowledge, October 26, 2001

By	cmynsc "my11512" (Sunnyvale, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This book is an excellent resource for anyone interested in creating websites with great business value. As a server-side applications developer, I've been mainly concerned with exploiting the web as a technological medium. This book opened my eyes to the web as an information medium, strategically used to improve a company's bottom line. It truly delivers on its claim -- [serving as] "a bridge from technical understanding to business savvy".

The book is extremely well-organized and has tons of practical knowledge and insight. Furthermore, all the principles are illustrated using easy to follow, real life examples. Excellent throughout -- highly recommended!