But nobody can afford to be complacent . Successful new e-businesses can emerge from nowhere. Recent experience suggests it takes little more than two years for such a start-up to formulate an innovative business idea, establish a web presence and begin to dominate its chosen sector. By then i t may be too late for slow-moving traditional businesses to respond. For evidence of how far most companies still have to go in developing their Internet strategies, look no further than their corporate websites.
Most managers know perfectly well that they have to do better.
Yet despite all this positive talk, three-quarters did not yet have websites that would support online transactions or tie in with their customer databases and those of their suppliers, although many were working on it. In other words, most bosses know what they should be doing, but have not yet got around to it. It is easy to understand why. Knowing that you need a coherent e-business strategy is one thing, getting one is altogether more difficult. And until you decide precisely what your strategy should be, it will not be clear what kind of IT infrastructure investments you will need to make.