• Communication
• Compensation / Total Reward Systems
• Human Resource Management
• Motivation
• Organization Analysis, Design & Change
• Age & Wisdom
• Been There, Downsized That! Deja Vu All Over Again
• E-Commerce and Organization Design
• Keeping Your Organization on Course - Whatever the Economic Weather
• Knowledge Mismanagement
• Long Term Success Through Deep Organization Diagnosis
• More Downsizing: The Unlearned Lesson
• Network Organization in Action
• Organization Design Plus
• Organization Moving at Superluminal Speeds
• The New Board of Directors
• Understanding Organizations
• What Your Customers Know About Fixing Your Organization that You Don't
• You Can Get Thin, But It's No Way to Get Healthy: The Perils of Appalling Downsizing
• Performance Management

E-Commerce and Organization Design

We received an inquiry this morning from a graduate Economics student in Italy. In researching his thesis on production management, he wanted to know:

1. What structure(s) will pure E-Commerce enterprises adopt?
2. How should learning organizations manage their employees?
3. What atmosphere can be expected in E-Commerce companies?

We thought we'd share our answers with those of you who may have been wondering about the same question:

1. E-commerce is in its infancy.

   While a few, like Amazon, are big in revenues compared to most Old Economy companies, they were born yesterday.

   The challenge of finding structures for pure E-commerce enterprises is daunting. These firms pioneer new frontiers and reinvent themselves continually.

   We have not yet conducted a formal study, but through informal explorations we have tentatively concluded that the design of E-Commerce (and similar high-tech, fast-paced, fiercely-competitive companies) will remain highly organic. Appropriate to their business model, they will shape and reshape themselves in response to emergent strategic planning. (FYI, many such companies shun the term "strategic planning" in the belief that it suggests Old Economy thinking and culture.)

   While you inquired about *pure* E-Commerce businesses, it is not always easy to draw the line. As you undoubtedly know, there are multiple variations on the E-Commerce theme. For example:

   Some companies deliver their entire product in cyberspace (eBooks, software, consulting services, music), while others take orders for products that must be physically delivered (clothing, garden supplies, household items).

   Some companies are exclusively in the E-commerce business (Amazon.com); others are traditional brick and mortar organizations with an E-Commerce presence (Barnes and Noble) that may be incorporated into the corporate structure and practices, or separated and allowed to design itself as a greenfield site.

   Some companies are one-person operations with a shoestring budget that is wholly funded by the owner; others are major corporations with impressively large assets and numbers of employees.

   In organization design, form must fit function. As business models vary, so will their organization designs. Each organization must find its own route to the permeable (or no) boundaries, teamwork, flexibility, agility, speed, knowledge, and open communication that all Knowledge Age companies must have to succeed.

2. Managing people is another story.

   E-commerce firms tend to be led by young, technologically-oriented people with little or no management experience. While work structure and processes must change to accommodate new environmental transformations (including technology), approaches to motivating people remain much the same.

   Don't expect to find best practices for management in E-commerce companies until they've had a chance to mature a bit. Look, instead, to such companies as Motorola, Saturn, Ben and Jerry's, and others on Fortune magazines list of the100 best companies to work for. They are all "learning organizations," a concept pioneered by many firms. Any organization can be a learning organization. E-commerce enterprises don't have a monopoly on this concept.

3. In keeping with its environment, the atmospheres in an E-Commerce company can be expected to be one of purposeful chaos.