Integrating Operations and Information Strategy in e-Business

Businesses today operate in a fast-evolving environment where Internet-based technologies are not only ubiquitous but are having a fundamental impact on the way that businesses manage their operations and compete. An ever increasing number of organisations, whether dotcom start-ups or established businesses, are becoming e-businesses. Operations management academics have always highlighted the strategic importance of operations, and its role in corporate success. Consideration of operations strategy surely has no less importance in e-business than in traditional business. Yet there is evidence from practice that many companies have adopted e-applications without thinking through their strategic impact. Similarly, operations strategy theory appears to have done little to adapt to the changes wrought by the advent of Internet-based ICT. This paper considers what impact the Internet has had on operations strategy and whether new strategic thinking is required in response to the powerful external forces that are re-shaping industry. The paper postulates that new thinking is required and that effective operations strategy must now also integrate the consideration of information systems strategy within its subject matter.