Event review by Dalim Basu:

A website is by now a ‘must-have’ for all organisations. And it seems to be easy to get a website up and running within hours…

What’s really involved?

In this event we looked behind the frames at the effort and money which needs to be to invested in a successful business website – research, strategy, planning, design, development, content management, links, hosting, security, performance monitoring, helpdesk, marketing, legal aspects (and even the small print is a big issue to consider)…

We considered an overview of many aspects involved, confronted a few glaring ‘home-page horrors’ and learned from ‘best practice’ case studies in how to do it well.

Our fine presenters at this well-attended and popular event were:

• JONATHAN CORNTHWAITE
  IT Partner, Wedlake Bell
  
• DOUGLAS HAYWARD
  Ex-Editor of ‘Computing’
  His presentation/demonstration is not available.
  
• NICO MACDONALD
  Principal, Spy
  
• ATUL BHOVAN
  Consultant, Compuware
  
• LUCY LAM-PO-TANG
  Consultant, DareStep
  Her presentation/demonstration is not available.
  
• ZENA MEYER
  Head of DareStep (UK & Ireland)
  Her presentation is not available.

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Event review by Dalim Basu:

As an IS project manager everybody tells you that you need to align business and IT, but nobody tells you how! Organisations expend a vast amount of time, effort and money on Information Systems and yet achieve disappointingly modest levels of business value and benefits. Business people wonder why they so often fail to address business objectives. IT people wonder why business people keep changing their requirements - or don't even know what they want in the first place.

Will any amount of IT be able to help?

DAVID JACOBS, Director of Profit from Information Ltd. was the presenter at the event.

"When people try to put business and technology together, they may find there’s no filling in the sandwich", explained David. "There’s nothing in the middle."

To fill the gap, he introduced some concepts from his ‘Profit Business Value Approach’ to the improvement of information systems business value and benefits.

David felt that an appreciation that business uses information and that IT processes information goes a long way to bridging the gap in terms of generation of value – and that an understanding of how businesses use (or should be using) information goes even further.

As part of this process, the Business Value Approach "can enable you to ‘value tag’ activities by adding a £ value to an activity, rather than just specifying whether it’s required or not."

David defined ‘Information System Business Value’ (ISBV) as the degree to which an information system potentially helps a business to achieve its objectives.

He described ‘IT effectiveness’ as "the degree to which a physical IT system supports the ISBV".

To improve Business Value and Benefits, David advised considering ways to:

• formulate a way of working that may use information systems at strategic points, where it is beneficial;
• generate business value rather than ‘getting software in’;
• improve organisational understanding of the use of information.

"There’s a lot of wall-to-wall software out there," said David. "In future I think we won’t be computerising so much, but focusing more on where we can do good."

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Event review by Dalim Basu:

What should you look for when assessing and purchasing eProcurement and B2B eMarketplace solutions and services? How can revenue generation be sustained? Is eProcurement failing? What is the importance of Supply Chain Management (SCM) and its place in eProcurement and eMarkets?

In this event we looked at some ‘good practice’ case studies, and the products and services behind them.

Our fine presenters were:

• STEVE FARR
  Product Marketing Manager EMEA, Clarus
  ‘Sustained revenue generation in the B2B Marketplace’
  
  
• Dr JOHN ADAMSON
  Joint Managing Director, Tranmit plc
  ‘ Why is eProcurement failing?’
  
  
• Dr MICHAEL TALALAY
  Independent Consultant
  ‘Issues in Supply Chain Management’

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Event review by Dalim Basu:

What does Enterprise Application mean to you? Is EAI just another TLA (three letter acronym) for what IT people have been doing for decades?

Or could this be ‘e-glue’ to provide inter-connectivity for E-Business products and others (eCRM, E-Procurement, ERP, data warehousing etc.) – a key to the future?

In this event we looked at strategic and technical aspects, plus case studies of EAI in practice.

Our expert presenters were:

• DAVID MORRIS
  EAI Director, PricewaterhouseCoopers
  His presentation is attached below.
  
  
• THIBAULT BARADAT
  IT Manager, Airline Seats
  His presentation notes are not available.

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Unfortunately this event was cancelled at the last minute by the Science Museum.

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Event review by Jim Kennedy:

Our spreakers were :

Colin Jenkins - e-business Advisor, Greater London Authority
Alex Bax - Senior Policy Officer, Greater London Authority

Description: How the GLA plans to ensure London’s competitiveness, business expansion, and inward investment is maintained and further developed through the impact of e-business. E-government in London, the London Connects partnership and the future development of e-government in London.

Summary: The first speaker, Colin Jenkins described his role with the GLA as being to ensure London’s competitiveness, business expansion, and inward investment is maintained and further developed through the impact of e-business. He then showed through some very revealing graphs and statistics how London is currently (2001) leading the world as an internet business centre. He then discussed the threats to London's position, the issues and what can be done to help London remain in such a strong position. This brought us onto the issues of the Government’s Objective "to achieve the goal of making the UK the most extensive and competitive broadband market in the G7 by 2005". It was concluded that a new approach to broadband access is required, and that this approach needs to be underpinned by major training and education initiatives.

On the above note, our second speaker, Alex Bax, began to show how Regional and Local government can play its part as a lead adopter, in his talk entitled "e-Government". Many examples were given, from both London and overseas. The talk covered various areas including "the digital divide", e-democracy and "London Connects" - Developing a strategy, building coordinating capacity and stimulating London-wide initiatives.

Conclusion: The final conclusion was that the issues are complex, London is complex, resources are limited but identifying the key issues for London, focusing on the Mayor’s strategies and London Connects, should give the GLA the best possible chance of being able to deliver a firm foundation for London Businesses to remain strong and competitive in the 21st century.

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Event review by Dalim Basu:

eHubs, Exchanges, Marketplaces, Portals, eProcurement, e-supply chain management, e-Fulfilment…Is the expanding business-to-business e-world only for those with big money and big hopes for big returns?

What’s the chance of survival if you’re big or small?

This event took us into the fast-changing risk-prone ‘B2B jungle’ to look at some real-life case studies and lessons for the future.

Our three excellent ‘guides’ were:

• DOUGLAS HAYWARD, Editor of ‘Computing’;
• NIGEL CANDELOT, E-Markets Technology Partner, PricewaterhouseCoopers; and
• IAN WELLAND, Strategic Business Consultant, SAP UK.

Disappointing paybacks, problems for users and for suppliers… Douglas felt that "it’s been a rough ride" for B2B as with other aspects of E-Business. E-Business is still more hope than reality. But it’s no longer just ‘hype’ – some people are already doing it well. Douglas presented interesting results of recent research due to be published on the front page of ‘Computing’ the day after this BCS North London event.

Nigel presented overviews of eHubs, eMarkets and other aspects of B2B, including illustrations and case studies from his substantial experience of the CPG (consumer packaged goods) market sector. He showed that B2B is a great area for integration, with lots of opportunities for collaboration and partnering. For example eMarket solutions can bring together specialists in ERP, EAI and Marketplace Advancement planning.

Ian presented a number of B2B product snapshots, including examples of e-learning systems. He felt that B2B – and its benefits – are not limited to big business – much smaller organisations can also participate and get the benefits. For example, everyone could potentially benefit from the selective use of B2B exchange services and their own enterprise portal. Successful use of B2B can help create business value by enhancing an organisation’s visibility, agility and responsiveness.

But B2B is no panacea, stressed Ian. There are some fundamental pre-requisites essential for getting value from B2B. For example, participating organisations must have the internal capability to deliver solutions. So it’s important to firstly address internal processes and gaps. Nigel concurred and felt that one of the biggest barriers to overcome is still getting the commitment of companies’ top management. Douglas also agreed that there’s still some way to go, but shared the general optimism that B2B will move from today’s "trough of disillusionment" to a future "plateau of profitability".

What are the keys to future B2B success? Nigel thought "Collaboration". Douglas added two others: "trust and relationships - both relating more to people than technology." He added "the future is about collaboration across organisational boundaries. Collaboration requires trust… and robust, secure, integrated IT."

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Event review by Dalim Basu:

Is the ‘hype’ all over now? Can we replace ‘E-business’ by ‘business as usual’? Where are we now with ‘E’?

These questions were put to the presenters at this event, which was a status report of snapshots, observations and case studies from the ‘E’ world.

Our three excellent presenters at this ‘full house’ event were:

KARL SCHNEIDER, Editor of ‘Computer Weekly’;
NIGEL HICKSON, Head of E-Business at the CBI (Confederation of British Industry); and
DAVID HENDERSON, Leader of IT Strategy Practice EMEA, a Partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers.

"Could the E-nabled business revolution be thrown off course by technical challenges, stock-market doubts and uncertainty?" asked event coordinator Dalim Basu.

‘Not to any significant extent’ was the general opinion of the presenters.

"Are we heading toward converging technologies – or techno-confusion?" asked Dalim.

Toward converging technologies in some aspects of E-business thought the presenters, although there is still a lot of confusion about E-business directions and possibilities.

Karl Schneider acknowledged there have been significant recent numbers of E-Business failures, including well-publicised ‘dot-com’ company failures. But he felt that we can get too ‘hung up’ with technology – as with IT failures in general, most E-business failures have been due to human reasons rather than technical ones. However, IT is now driving business strategy in many ways, so there is a lot more focus than before on IT supporting inter-relationships between business functions. E-business is helping to create new ways of structuring and achieving business relationships. Software agent technology is contributing to reducing ‘techno-confusion’ and information overload by becoming more effective at filtering information. Keeping in mind that a key factor of E-business is about helping make better use of Internet technology, Karl expects that we will see many more ways of accessing the Internet, in addition to mobile phones. E-business will help future IT to become much more ‘hands-free’ than now.

Nigel Hickson felt that E-business is still full of ‘techno-confusion’ and myths – and that the media is largely to blame. It is a myth to say that some organisations are involved in E-business whereas others are not. Today if may feel like you have got to be on the Internet, else you may as well go home and stay out of the E-business revolution. But soon, in business and as consumers, we will all be involved and affected by E-business. He presented some of the findings of a recent survey on ‘The quiet revolution’ by the CBI with KPMG. Implementing E-business is tough - it’s never been easy. ‘E’ is not only for the ‘big boys’ of the business world. E-business is a change that is here to stay. It is becoming an integral part of business strategies. It is an evolving process, a continuum – it is not static. And it applies to all sizes of company, across all sectors of industry.

But there are still many serious concerns. Nigel felt that as well as reducing ‘dot.com demise’, we urgently need to address major issues relating to broadband telecommunications, E-government, and information security.

Nigel felt we all need to get more involved in the issues and ‘network’ to learn more from each other - including at forums such as this event. ‘E’ is for Everyone!

David Henderson was the third of our informative and entertaining presenters. His presentation ‘After the gold rush’ made a number of interesting comparisons between the current E-business revolution and the California gold rush of 150 years ago! With reference to supporting case studies about various companies, he focused on some of the business and technology issues. He illustrated how IT can ‘enable’ what business needs; gave examples of E-business initiatives leading to sustainable advantage and market efficiency; outlined aspects of new economic models for organisations to consider; and described how to move from a ‘traditional’ business strategy to an E-business strategy by an ‘e-transformation’ to a B2B (business-to-business) corporate structure. Tomorrow’s successful business are looking for a new breed of IT professional – perhaps an artistic engineer!

David also highlighted some other issues for consideration, relating to important strategic and structural aspects of E-business. He closed with a quick look at how California is doing, 150 years after the gold rush!

How will E-business look in the future – let’s say just four years ahead rather than 150 years on? In a very brief survey of the audience (which included many consultants and others involved in E-business), Dalim asked which of the following current E-Business topics they thought will still be around in 2005 (in use and recognisable in relation to how they are today). (Dalim gave no definition of the topics, leaving them open to personal interpretation for this quick vote.)

The topics and votes were as follows (the approximate percentage of the audience saying ‘yes’ is shown):

ASP – 75%; B2B – 100%; CRM – 75%; B2C – 25%; E-Infrastructure – 25%; B2E – 50%; E-Commerce – 100%; E-Market – 25%; Portal – 50%; E-Procurement – 75%; E-Hub – 0% (except for a single vote - by David Henderson, who felt the meaning and potential of Hubs may not yet be appreciated – interesting!); E-Security – 100%; M-Business – 75%.

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Event review by Alastair Duggin:

Three speakers presented their views on different aspects of Windows 2000.

Ian Takats, Group Information Systems Manager of Holmes Place plc gave an outline of his findings with an implementation of Windows 2000.

The main reason for Holmes Place not migrating earlier was lack of Windows 2000 compliance by the membership system as well as the more usual lack of budget and nervousness.
In the end, Holmes Place did implement Windows 2000 because they had the ability to trial it
They wanted the 2000 Exchange server for better control over the e-mail systems in Holmes Place.
The increase reliability and stability of Windows 2000 would be beneficial for the increasing numbers of laptops.
He found that for smaller organisations, Active Directory was not necessary for most services.
He has found the system to be very stable having no unscheduled downtime since installation 3 months ago. He found the administration features excellent and better for users, better plug-and-play, faster and easier to install software on the server.

He would like to see better event logging and have the ability to roll-back functional changes..

Andrew Rose, Partner Strategy Consultant, Microsoft Consulting Services provided information on the current status of Windows 2000 and an developments in the near future.

Andy Mulholland, Chief Technology Officer of Cap Gemini Ernst & Young provided an insight into the future and showed how the Windows 2000 Active Directory would provide the key.

Andy outlined the development of the web from web-site through e-commerce, e-business, e-markets to u-commerce where information is based on real-time data, rather the historic data.
He outlined current and planned developments leading to the Exchange Business Model where goods would be "available to promise".
After running through current business models, he noted that what is really required :-

• application-specificity,
• process repository
• user management

The last function involves the use of the Active Directory containing people, own staff and others.

• The web changes everything
• Task and process is all
• Desktop is not the end, it is the beginning
• User lies at the centre

He sees Windows 2000 as the watershed technology. It answers the immediate needs and provides for development for the future.

A Questions & Answers session followed

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