The Ten Deadly Mistakes of Wanna-Dots

An e-business project's how-NOT-to-do it:
This article is still relevant for e-business managers in traditional firms. In her 2001 article, Harvard professor Moss-Kanter presents an interesting instruction manual for companies pretending to focus on e-business, but who really aren't prepared to undergo a serious makeover. This is a brief extract of her HOW NOT TO DO IT manual: 1. Sprinkle Internet responsibilities throughout the company -- a little Web site here, a little brochure-ware there. 2. Form a weak steering committee. Give the leadership role to a bored executive as a reward for his years of loyal service. 3. Find the fastest, simplest, and least-demanding thing you can do on the Web. Go for copy-ware. That will save time and money. And that way, you can cross the Internet off your to-do list quickly. 4. To build the site, choose the vendors that are the most dismissive of your traditional business. Then hand over the technical work to them (that way nobody inside has to learn anything new). 5. Make sure what you do on the Web is exactly the same as what you do off-line. Duplicate your traditional business assumptions on-line. Don't rethink any elements of your business. 6. Insist that an Internet venture meet every corporate standard: cost controls, quarterly earnings, recruitment sources, compensation policies, purchasing procedures. Allocate just enough resources to keep it alive but not enough to risk its becoming an innovator. Same procedure as with any other business development projects ... 7. Under the banner of decentralization and business unit autonomy, reward each unit for its own performance, and offer no extra incentives to cooperate in cyberspace. Don't share IT development costs... 8. Compare your performance with your traditional industry competitors in the physical world. Don't even consider whether companies from unrelated industries could steal across the borders and poach your customers by using the Net. 9. Celebrate your conversion to e-business by giving internal users tools they are unable to use; requiring changes they are confused about making. Watch as the new tools take too much time and make it harder to get the work done, and then punish people for their resistance to change. 10. And, last but not least, never forget that the company, not the customer, is in the driver's seat. The Internet is an opportunity for us to communicate with them (monologue vs. dialogue). It would be hard to find a better set of roles for how not to change. Proven in practice, they summarize the experience of hundreds of companies (otherwise, they might be considered funny) that Moss-Kanter interviewed as part of her research for her article and book ("E-volve"). The sad truth is that even the most successful company cannot buy its way to change by just introducing a simple web site. It must be willing to change more fundamental aspects of its way of life. Although somewhat out-of-date, I still recommend this article (or even better: her book "E-volve") for a special target audience: People, who are working on an e-business project for a traditional corporation. They will still get much inspiration from Moss-Kanter's research on how to "e-volve" (and what to avoid). In many companies, I still experience a strong traditional company culture that makes it extremely difficult for the e-business team to navigate towards success. In this respect, the article's cases on Williams-Sonoma and Honeywell are very interesting lessons learned... Peter Leerskov, MSc in International Business (Marketing & Management) and Graduate Diploma in E-business