Elemica

Global Information Systems
Strategy

ELEMICACooperation, Collaboration and Community |

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Prepared by: Raphael Hassler [e-mail]

Title | : Elemica e-Business Initiative | Prepared for | : Dr. xxx, CEO of Elemica Inc. | Prepared by | : Raphael Hassler, CTO of Elemica Inc. | Date | : 5 June 2011 | |

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This is an in-depth study of Elemica’s existing B2B online business and the report contains the findings and its business potential of achieving a larger market share of the online supply chain management in the world. Several key factors have been considered and analyzed and a strategic plan developed to achieve Elemica’s e-Business initiative of global expansion.

The e-Business initiative is supported by several factors. Its superior electronic B2B hub, the other first class products, scalability, high customer satisfaction, high professional experience in supply chain management, its locations and market size provide perfect opportunities for further growth into other international industries. Also emerging markets appear to be very promising for future business, but only where they are the first to seize the opportunity in that area as the company will face threats from competitors who are providing similar products already for the same service. Hence the entrance has to be planned very carefully. Elemica’s product portfolio, experience and track record of success in that area indicates high viability and readiness.

Although Elemica is an expert in the process of supply chain management, their experience and expertise in other industries is lacking. Requirements may be different and so might the business processes. Elemica would benefit greatly by obtaining expert advice about these markets to understand the behaviors of its clients. Due to the changes in the facilitating infrastructure (outsourcing and cloud computing) and additional services such as mobile computing, Elemica will also need to take

Bibliography: Turban, E, King, D, Lee, J, Liang, T, and Turban, D, 2010, Electronic Commerce 2010: A Managerial Perspective, 6th edn, Pearson, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ. Dr. Turban holds an MBA and PhD (University of California, Berkeley). He is a Professor of Information Systems at California State University, Long Beach. Previously, he was a Business lecturer at Eastern Illinois University. Dr. Turban is a member of the American Association of Artificial Intelligence and has published around twenty books on AI and information technology. Dr. David King holds a PhD in Sociology (University of North Carolina) and is Executive Vice President of Product Development and Management at JDA, an international company for supply chain Management Software. He has written over fifty articles and books and co-authored others. The book provides a good insight into the overall correlations between the processes and provides a holistic view about electronic commerce. It provides a substantial understanding establishing strategies in this area. The newest edition incorporates also the newest technologies such as Web 2.0, cloud computing and mobile technology, key features that are very important to create a successful business these days. On the other hand the book also relies also on the basic tools such as SWOT analysis and Porter’s five forces to analyze new market entries. The source provided a great help to conclude a business analysis for an expansion in new markets for Elemica. Computer Sciences Corporation CSC, Falls Church, VA Michael W. Laphen, chairman of CSC since July 2007, with more than 30 years of experience with the company, including executive and senior management positions that have provided a comprehensive mix of technical, financial and general management experiences in diverse commercial, public sector, and international markets. CSC is an innovative company and delivers technology solutions for commercial and government customers. Recent presentations, conferences and meetings with seniors of this company showed that they focus heavily on centralization, outsourcing and cloud computing. According to CSC the history will describe Cloud Computing as a catalyst for a tectonic change in the business world. A change that allowed new business models, accelerated innovation and fundamentally changed the economy. Companies entering this market early will benefit from the potential and can exploit (Brian Boruff, CSC Global Vice President, Emerging Technologies and Strategic Growth Markets, 2011). I’m more skeptical about cloud computing and don’t see this as a new revolution in the IT business. The concept exists from the very beginning of IT and was there before; these days it just provides more enhanced features that allows easier provisioning, faster deployments and better management capabilities. The whole idea was used in early days from hackers and universities who led computers all over the world calculate difficult CPU intensive tasks. I agree that global companies acting on several continents with a worldwide spread can benefit from this technology, but CSC claims that this is the key technology for everything for everybody. All countries have the majority of their businesses in the small and middle size segments, and I doubt that cloud computing is always the right choice for them, outsourcing probably. I think this is also the time waving big words such as virtualization, outsourcing and cloud computing and when I talk to sales and technical experts they mostly use the buzz word cloud computing, even at the end it is just a normal outsourcing running on a virtual server. This is not real cloud computing. The main obstacle for cloud computing though will be the security of data, access to data and the cross border support barrier that needs to be considered as soon there are confidential client data, internal confidential data and PII data. In my view cloud computing will not be able to resolve this issue or it is not a real cloud computing. Because of that, my conclusion is that cloud computing is perfect for a particular kind of business where it absolutely makes sense, but not for all and not for everything. It is a technology enhancement for me, but not a revolution.