e-sophistication or e-scepticism?

As summer 2001 plays itself out and the manufacturing sector slides officially into recession, with output falling for two consecutive quarters according to the Office for National Statistics, we bring you the third of our special e-business in Manufacturing issues. This autumn edition, produced in association with the DTI and CBI, and sponsored by Rockwell, SAP and Reqio, aims to help you up the ante in what are undoubtedly more challenging times than ever. It’s not that today’s difficulties are without precedent: manufacturing has faced recession no fewer than four times in the last decade or so. Neither are we suggesting that businesses can’t cope in troubled times: much of manufacturing has had it pretty tough for years. And we’re not scare mongering: there are already signs of recovery being picked up by the CBI – albeit slim. But it is the case that conventional business methods and practice, and certainly the technology that underpins them, have moved on – particularly with the upsurge of the web and web technologies. That being the case, we are of one mind: we need to ensure that British business is not only aware of what can and should now be being done in every respect, but how and why and with whom. e-business in Manufacturing is your opportunity to sanity check both your existing plans and the exhortations of your internal departments and external consultancies – measuring them against the big picture and the detail we share with you here. It’s a job that still needs doing. In a recent survey carried out for web technology giant Cisco by IDC, for example, which took in opinions from 3,720 companies’ IT departments, it emerged that although UK manufacturing SMEs appear a little ahead of their mainland European counterparts on ‘e’, they lag virtually every other commercial sector on take-up. And that’s the finding of virtually all the major surveys: the CBI with KPMG Consulting, Microsoft with Cranfield ... the list goes on. Add to this research by enterprise software and databases colossus Oracle and the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply on e-procurement, which found firms rather too sceptical for their own good, and it’s clear that something is not quite right. If scepticism is allowed to colour our judgement for all of ‘e’, even all of IT, there’s a really big problem around the corner for British competitiveness. It’s not all wrong. Fact is few today expect ‘e’ to transform all aspects of everything they do in five minutes; few anyway are able, financially or feasibly, to throw away the book and start again. Business continuity is, after all, another real issue. Equally, opinion has moved away from the somewhat polarised views of late last year, where ‘e’ was held to be either all about e-procurement – the low hanging fruit – or any one of the other functional/ departmental e-replacements. More than a business tool If you like, we’re all a great deal more e-sophisticated. But we mustn’t let the visionary pendulum swing back too far. We do need to remember that ‘e’ is not quite just another business tool: it does have the capacity to transform (make more efficient and fast, cut the cost of and so on) so much of the way business is done. It has already become part of the business and manufacturing language, but terms like ‘e-collaboration’, need to be properly understood in terms of the scale of benefits and the implications for getting them – and of not getting them. In this issue you will find help. There is information about: how to scope and scale investment in ‘e-collaboration’ projects, taking into account the realities of dealing with the relatively unknown. We also cover what’s involved in digital content management and the benefits that flow from getting it right. There is insight into the dangers of e-coercion. And we look in detail at how web technologies can improve supply chain operations. We also provide case studies on three entirely different companies’ efforts to gain from web initiatives in completely different ways – how and why they did what they did, the benefits that accrued and where they are going now. We trust you will find this both instructive and useful. And we sincerely hope that it helps to move you on with your e-business journey.