Trying to convince companies to add “clicks and bytes” to their bricks and mortar business plans can be an uphill battle that has more to do with organizational culture than high-tech ability, say experts.
But businesses that successfully merge their time-tested practices with the demands of the digital age will have a better chance of success, a Calgary conference heard last week.
“Bricks and mortar companies don’t necessarily understand that e-business is going to be, in the long term, fundamental to their success,” says Kim Hubick of the Strategic Leadership Forum’s Calgary chapter.
The forum, a not-for-profit, national association of senior business professionals interested in issues relating to strategic management and leadership, held its second annual conference in Calgary on Friday called Competing on the Edge: Mapping Bricks and Bytes.
The one-day seminar focused on the challenges of merging traditional business models with the e-business economy.
“There’s a great deal of difficulty understanding e-business and how it should really impact an organization,” said Hubick, the incoming president of the forum, which has 180 members in Calgary.
“There are still pockets of organizations in Calgary that need to sit up and pay attention to the fact that the world is changing, and this could be a tool to help them figure out how they adapt to that change and move forward.”
“Bricks and clicks” are both necessary strategies because the pace of technology isn’t slowing down, says Dave Collyer, general manager of e-business for Shell Canada Ltd., which has a team in Calgary dedicated to the company’s e-business strategy implementation and development.
The biggest barriers, Collyer observed, include organizational culture, the fear of risking current business, a lack of innovation and the willingness of an organization to change.
“You’ve got to have buy-in at the top,” he told a seminar audience. “It doesn’t have to be 100 per cent, but you have to have strong leadership committed to moving in this direction.”
The sword cuts both ways, he added. The so-called “dot-com” companies should also be looking at integrating some of the strengths of bricks-and-mortar companies into their own business plans, attributes which often include trusted brand names and company reputation.
Many traditional bricks-and-mortar companies are only driven into setting up their first Web site to keep up with their competition, said Debi Andrus, an assistant professor of marketing at the University of Calgary who teaches B2B sales management and market planning.
In researching businesses who have implemented e-business strategies, Andrus found several mentioned that customers would think they had gone out of business unless they had a presence on the Web.
“It was the marketing department,” she said, “that actually drove the introduction of the Web site into these organizations.”
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www.strategicleadershipforum.org/
