The eProcess Edge: Creating Customer Value & Business in the Internet Era

Rating:
Summary: The eProcess Edge is a Winner!
Review: eCommerce has both blinded and charmed many business people into focusing on the wrong issues and actions for their companies, customers, and investors. Fewer than 20 eBusinesses have achieved consistent eCommerce profitability, and created real customer value.

There are very few worthy how-to books about eCommerce. Customers.com is one such book. However, many other books adopt a "white ivory tower" mentality that fails to explain the nuts and bolts of the eCommerce explosion, and fewer even give clear guidelines on becoming successful in eCommerce

What book should you read to understand the what's and how's of eCommerce?

The eProcess Edge is a must-read for managers (technical and non-technical), C-level officers, consultants, academics, and industry analysts. It is useful to both professionals, and anyone who wants to be a well-informed online customer and potential investor of eBusinesses.

The eProcess framework offers logical and compelling analyses of eCommerce success and failures for the past 5 years, and is based on the lessons learned from a large sample size (80+) of companies across different industries to support its reasonings.

Keen and McDonald provide strong inferential arguments for the importance in eCommerce of: - commerce fundamentals - relationships building - business process excellence - collaborative value networks - electronic interfaces - capabilities sourcing - customer experience.

Technology does not provide all the answers. The integration of people, process and technology is necessary to achieve the eProcess edge for high customer value, and high company profitability.

This is a very practical book. It offfers many lessons-learned, and recommends specific actions. It addresses the challenges and issues for both pure-online only, and traditional "bricks and mortar" companies. It leverages the expertise and insights of two veteran eCommerce experts - backed by the research, analyses, real-world experiences, and talents of their respective companies (Keen Innovations, Andersen Consulting).

Rating:
Summary: A surprisingly good read!
Review: In plain English, this book defines eProcess and how a company can use it to it's advantage. This book is littered with real-world examples and is absent of technology-babble. Furthermore, the examples also show how the absence -- or lack of -- eProcess negativley impacts a businesses performance.

I have a great understanding of the overall theory of eProcess and why a company MUST have one to survive in the eCommerce world in which we live.

Rating:
Summary: Good Read in the context of .com disasters
Review: Keen and McDonald do a great job in addressing issues that companies face in the "Internet Era." The text is well organized and emphasizes the fact that companies do need to focus on their customers and their processes. Their chapters on "out-tasking" and "in-sourcing" are helpful for those not familiar with these concepts. Additionally, the book helps "executive" types really understand the concept of "embedding" rules within a software interface. The chapters that focus on web "touch and texture" and value networks are also insightful. I believe that they did a great job in addressing "process."

However, like many of these types of books, it's written in "consultant" speak aka "Accenture" or "Andersen" speak. It lacks details and quite frankly that is where the devil can be found. The book provides limited examples of successful eCommerce implementations. Believe it or not, Amazon and National Semiconductor are not the only companies that have successfully performed eCommerce implementations. If your looking for technical details this is NOT the book for you. Additionally, the writing is a bit wordy. There are more than one sentence where authors use "thus, that" and other odd gramatical constructs. With better editing, I am sure that the book could have been made a little easier to read.

This a great read to learn more about strategy and process, but be prepared to "wade" through the jargon.

Rating:
Summary: Should be read by executive management and the project team
Review: Some books about business explain the emerging critical concepts of the day. Other books about business teach the details of implementation for a new technology. It is very rare to find one book that does both. E-Process Edge does both. It covers the new world of E-commerce at the conceptual level. It also provides a wealth of practical how-to material on how to apply the new concepts in a particular situation. This is one book that should be read by both executive management and the e-commerce project team.

Carl Longnecker Visiting Executive Loyola Graduate School of Business