The dot-com infrastructure delivers enhanced customer value by straddling physical and digital spaces and providing linkages to partners. At minimum, it must deliver superior functionality, personalized interaction, streamlined transactions, and pragmatic privacy. Dot-com operations require superb alignment among key executives. Each must play a leading and supporting role for different aspects of the business. If the management team is not aligned, the dot-com strategy may be hijacked by one or two members with a partisan agenda.
Powerful transformations are under way as companies blend their traditional and Internet businesses.
Reprint 4131 N. Venkatraman is a visiting professor of strategy and international management at the London Business School, on leave from Boston University, where he is a professor of management, Information Systems Department. All rights reserved.