Managers will be doing it nearly blind, with only vague notions about where they're headed or their ultimate E-business destination. Any E-business strategy must also be able to support a phased implementation approach, recognizing that companies don't have the time or knowledge to build the infrastructure all at once. In effect, an E-business infrastructure includes everything but the company's applications, content, and data.
Infrastructure is nothing new.
In general, an E-business infrastructure requires more scalability, availability, and security than infrastructures for business systems. The E-business infrastructure will also be more outward facing, able to interoperate with systems that reside outside the enterprise and are beyond the company's control. The classic method for building a systems infrastructure is first to painstakingly analyze the business and design the systems architecture. However, E-business doesn't allow for the kind of time it takes to follow the classic approach. Speed requires an iterative approach that will get the business started, avoid any killer problems organizers can anticipate early on, and be flexible enough to go wherever the business needs to go without having to redo the entire thing.