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As firms migrate from their traditional physical business models to a combination of physical and e-business models, the importance of information,
particularly customer information, raises the stakes for the management of the firm's information technology infrastructure. The number of opportunities for investing in IT infrastructure, however, can
easily overwhelm senior management teams. To guide IT investment decisions this paper examines e-business IT infrastructure requirements. Based on a study of 50 e-business initiatives, the researchers
classified e-business initiatives into 8 different atomic e-business models and then examined the need for each of 70 IT infrastructure services by each atomic model. The results indicate that each type of
e-business model demands a different set of five or six key infrastructure services. This finding should help executives identify IT investment priorities for their e-business strategies. Recommendations are
made for senior management to review their firm's IT governance to ensure IT infrastructure needs for e-business are identified early in the strategizing process. |
