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Are
You Ready For the 21st Century?
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The
1000 Biggest Companies
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Oracle Corp. offers a free online test of your company's maturity
as an e-business at www.oracle.com. Take Asiaweek's simplified
version and get a rough idea of where you are in the Internet
revolution.
How do customers interact with your enterprise?
a) They can obtain general information about the company
from our website
b) They can place orders, submit forms and perform other
one-way transactions
c) They can pay bills, track orders and requests, and
service their own accounts
d) Based on their transaction history, they receive customized
offers on products and services at special prices
How do you use the Internet to manage
your enterprise?
a) We share information within the company by e-mail
and flyers, not through the Internet
b) Each division has its own data warehouse, so we have
to query different systems to obtain aggregate information
c) We have an enterprise-wide data warehouse that employees
can access to find information about financial activity in a
previous period
d) We have an Internet portal for decision-making that
uses an enterprise-wide, real-time information system
How do you use the Internet in your
value-chain and procurement activities?
a) We don't use the Internet to communicate with our
suppliers about orders
b) We input information from our suppliers' websites
into our own systems
c) We collaborate with our suppliers to jointly plan,
forecast and replenish our inventory
d) Our suppliers have limited access to our systems,
allowing them to monitor our needs and manage our inventory
for us
How does your technology infrastructure
support e-business?
a) We use the Internet only for our enterprise-wide website
b) We have department-level websites, but they are poorly
integrated
c) We have an enterprise-wide intranet connected to our
suppliers and partners, which is wrapped around our old systems
d) We have a pure Internet architecture with all our
applications running on self-service web systems
How do customers interact with your
enterprise?
a) They can obtain information about the company from
our website
b) They can place orders and perform other one-way transactions
c) They can pay bills, track orders and service their
own accounts
d) Based on their transaction history, they receive customized
offers on products and services at special prices
YOUR SCORE
If "d" is your answer to all four questions, you're
a fully e-enabled business. Are you sure you're not from a more
advanced extraterrestrial civilization?
A "d" to some questions, a "c" to others
be careful. You may be well on the way as an e-business, but
imbalances may build up because some of your systems are not
running in tandem. Remember Toys 'R' Us? It launched a website
during the Christmas holidays last year, then found that its
back-end systems warehousing, packing, shipping
were not as advanced as the portal. A lot of angry parents and
heartbroken kids there.
A "c" to every question? You're getting closer with
your cylinders firing more or less at the same time.
A combination of "c" and "b" and maybe the odd "a."
Again, the problem of mismatched ambitions and systems.
All "a"? Better get going. The Internet waits for
no man and corporation.
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