July 2003

Electronic Consulting: Myth Or Reality?

“C2B” is in 4 sections this month:

What is Electronic Consulting
The scope of E Consulting
The comparative difference between bricks and mortar and bricks and clicks
Hybrid Organization

Electronic Consulting is a broad subject covering everything from advice on strategy to building an Internet site, to implementation interventions in business activities. It includes strategy formulation, human resources development, financial management, IT infrastructure development and public administration, where the term “e-government” is increasingly used.

The key aspect of e consulting is it focuses on digitalization of business processes. The universal connectivity permitted by the growth of the Internet and a standardized way of communicating a cross-different computing platform is shifting the balance of importance from the physical world to the digital world.

The focus on digitalization of business processes creates a technology based overlay on functional and interdisciplinary management consulting. The e consultant working on an e business consultant assignment therefore needs additional expertise in this area.

Much of the e management consulting for bricks and mortar and bricks and clicks companies build on existing processes. In addition to business firms, this group also embraces government (public administration) organizations. The main differences between this group and the dot.coms are:

¨ The dot.com entrepreneur or team often lacks the skills required to get the business off the ground.

¨ The perceived need for fast launch and business development makes outsourcing and buy-ins buy dot.coms a large part of the IT infrastructure and business processes.

These contrasts with a Bricks and Mortar Company, which has and existing organizational structure and IT structure and is generally well established in a mature and slow moving target.

A hybrid of the two types is a bricks and mortar organization that sets up a separate dot.com, fully funded, in partnership with other companies or through venture capital providers. These hybrids are often connected to traditional systems and company cultures with the added challenge of competing in a new fast moving, entrepreneurial and risk taking business environment. E Consulting is alive and well

with IBM, Accenture, Bearing Point and other major consultancies with revenues in excess of a billion dollars. The Return on Investment (ROI) makes e consulting a reality.

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“C2B” Consulting-to-Business is a free, monthly, electronic newsletter written and published by Dwayne D. Jakes, D.B.A., Founder & Managing Director of Dwayne D. Jakes & Associates Management Systems, L.L.C. Past Columns are archived at

http://www.ddjakes.com

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