How To Become A Web-Run Enterprise – Of One Person Or 100,000 Employees

We are fast approaching the world of the “Web Run Enterprise”. This applies to any size of enterprise, whether you are in a $50 billion global company or you are a home-based entrepreneur. The larger the business, then the more efficient it will become to out-source the whole back-office and systems-of-record to a shared service centre, somewhere in the eponymous “Cloud”. Most conventional enterprise systems will be run off-premise as internal IT functions are rationalized. With the fast acceleration of reliability in areas such as In-Memory Databases and Advanced predictive Analytics, running these applications from the Cloud is also becoming a reality.

The consequences are clear. This means that the Web Run Enterprise will effectively run itself. Customer Relationship Management (“CRM”), Order Processing, Supply Chain, Cash Management and Accounting will all be run using in-memory technology that facilitates entirely new, more efficient business processes.

A new generation of “Adaptive Business Intelligence” will allow management to focus on the big decisions on how to allocate tactical expenditure and long-term strategic investment. – whether it is in capacity or new products. The science is there already. The algorithms are proven. In-memory speed from using this regression science can give you unbelievable powers to manipulate data from granular levels in order to simulate detailed scenarios and options.

In the longer term consumers will hunt the fastest fulfillment at the best price through information and fulfilment aggregators, with brand loyalties to retailers (multi-channel or otherwise) completely eroded.

So what does this entail for the small to medium-sized enterprise? Or for the “One-Man Band”? For the web-based small business, this offers unimaginable opportunities. While the large corporations are still stuck in the treacle of committees or the fearful inertia of strategic reviews, the small business or sole internet marketer can be far more fleet-of-foot.

How? There are three clear major opportunities.

1. Outsource most of your delivery capability on a global basis. The developing economies, particularly Brazil, India and most of economically-free South-East Asia, can supply most information technology services at a fraction of the costs from the old-economy business consultants and systems integrators. So this allows smaller operations to run their operations with more sophisticated systems. And grow their customer base due to improved value propositions compared to larger, clumsier established competition

2. Scale up. Go for more ambitious services to larger organizations or new customer segments. Offer more frequent fulfillment of either product or service delivery, to beat the competition

3. Seek out new web-base innovations to give you a truly differentiated customer offer. Then back up your internal enterprise systems with a whole Cloud-based suite of process and accounting support

Success will arrive by not just being a web-run virtual enterprise, but by being faster to recognize emerging needs in tighter consumer segments. Or create future needs by ambitious internet marketing programmes. Then by meeting these needs with outsourced cloud-base partnership programmes and by changing marketing or pricing instantly, with fast decision-making based on adaptive analytics and simulation.