E-Business: Roadmap for Success (Addison-Wesley Information Technology Series) (Paperback)

by Ravi Kalakota (Author), Marcia Robinson (Author), Don Tapscott (Foreword)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
To the uninitiated, e-business refers solely to the process of buying and selling goods over the Net. In our increasingly interactive age, however, it actually means much more. e-Business: Roadmap for Success, by Ravi Kalakota and Marcia Robinson, defines the term as "the complex fusion of business processes, enterprise applications and organizational structure necessary to create a high-performance business model." Kalakota and Robinson--specialists in the field who serve as founder-CEO and president, respectively, of a company called e-Business Strategies--show how to employ its tenets to compete more effectively in today's brave new world. Aiming at managers who recognize the need to plan and implement just such a course of action, the authors (with help from some pioneers currently practicing these techniques) offer solid advice for designing interrelated strategies focused on customer relationships, resource planning, order management, and supply chains, and on evaluating investments needed to make them a reality. Describing efforts undertaken by successful e-businesses such as Charles Schwab, which adopted a system that provides sales reps with real-time access to information on customers and appropriate new products, the two chart the course that trailblazing companies are following and savvy business people would be wise to emulate. --Howard Rothman

Review
"This book is a must-read for any company who has not completely re-invented itself since the Internet exploded onto the business world a few years ago." -- Alan Taetle, Former Executive Vice President of MindSpring and General Partner of the Venture Capital Firm, Noro-Moseley Partners

"This is the best book on e-Business for the decision-maker. It provides a great overview of the e-Business landscape." -- Andrew B. Whinston, Hugh Cullen Chair Professor of Information Systems, Economics and Computer Science, Graduate School of Business, University of Texas

"This is the book for creating a serious e-Business strategy. A must-read for managers who are creating tomorrow's e-business companies today." -- Dr. Frances Frei, Assistant Professor, Harvard Business School

"This is the first book on e-Business to combine a clarity of vision that will help you to appreciate the true significance of e-Business, with a rigorous roadmap for reinventing your business design. If you want to avoid being blindsided by your competition, you must make this book required reading in your organization." -- Mohanbir Sawhney, Tribune Professor of Electronic Commerce and Technology, Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University

"e-Business is the first book I have read which captures in any depth the full spectrum of business processes that are being re-defined and improved by leveraging the Internet and its associated technologies. Equally important, it relates these re-defined processes to underlying business objectives and benefits. This book is going stimulate a lot of thinking in corporate boardrooms and executive suites." -- David M. Alschuler, Vice President, e-Business and Enterprise Applications, Aberdeen Group, Inc.

"e-Business: Roadmap for Success provides unique insight into the emerging electronic business place. Economies around the world are undergoing a wholesale rejuvenation; businesses are re-inventing themselves. In this new economy, the Internet and technologies like the Java platform have helped businesses streamline business processes, have helped companies compete in new ways and have engendered all together new types of business opportunities. It's clear we're on the cusp of a new era. e-Business: Roadmap for Success serves as a guidebook to the new electronic business place where the rules of engagement are changing and where only one thing is certain: the status quo will not be maintained." -- Dr. Alan Baratz, President, Java Software, Sun Microsystems, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 378 pages
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley (C); 1 edition (June 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0201604809
• ISBN-13: 978-0201604801
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (86 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #915,813 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

110 of 115 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book on e-biz app infrastructure, February 6, 2000

By A Customer

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.

43 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A big SAP commercial!, December 6, 1999

By	Grant Bynum "prezbush" (Dallas) - See all my reviews

This book has a main thesis: ERP-type software is the answer to E-commerce problems!

This book has a secondary thesis: SAP IS the ERP of choice. The abundant amount of references to SAP border on the shameful...SAP could not have paid for a better advertisement.

Ravi is a good writer. He weaves good points all throughout the book. However, he just talks about SAP so often that it is difficult to see him as objective.

The best audience for this book is a beginning consultant at a Big 5 (or other) Consulting firm.

28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Creating the App. Infrastructure is the core problem...., December 9, 1999

By A Customer

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" :-)