Ebook: Business Intelligence And E-marketing Workshop, Ibm Warwick 2001

This is a special issue of QMRIJ whichreflects important aspects of research andbusiness. This special issue has been guestedited from IBM by Professor Merlin Stoneand Julie Abbott. Far reaching advances incommunications and information technologymean that interaction between companies andtheir customers – whether face-to-face, overthe counter, on the telephone or via theInternet, are becoming more frequent, intenseand data-rich. Many companies want toachieve more using these technologies, andcustomers expect to be served better. Thesetwin pressures are forcing companies to lookhard at how they manage these interactionsand the knowledge resulting from them.This special edition of QMRIJ encompassesboth practitioner and academic views ofresearch in the world of the Internet. Theresult is an interesting mix that was certainlyenjoyable and informative to the audience atthe Business Intelligence and e-MarketingWorkshop held at IBM Warwick in December2001. The workshop, which was chaired byProfessor Merlin Stone, was again run byProfessor Len Tiu Wright and co-hosted byIBM, who are pleased to be associated withthis prestigious annual academic andpractitioner exchange of views in the area of ebusiness.IBM was delighted to present the prize forbest paper to Corner and Hinton, for theirresearch on managing risks whenimplementing a multi-channel customerrelationship management (CRM) systemwithin medium sized organisations. Thisexcellent paper also discussed the dynamics ofrelationships between the players involved inthe implementation, both internal andexternal to the company. Finally, using amodel developed during the research, aframework for guidance in theimplementation process can be given.All this is very relevant to today’sbusinesses, most of which are using theInternet in some form or other to improvetheir customer management. This is bringingabout great changes, as outlined by Hughes,who researched the impact of adoptinge-business in financial services, in the areas ofinformation provision, transactions andservicing, cost reduction and productivity.Key issues included that of leadership andwhether to have an integrated or stand alone approach to e-business. Leadership is criticalto the success of all large changes to abusiness. Those that are driven from the topwith a clearly defined strategy have a muchgreater chance of success. We are often told about the greatparadigm changes that are being broughtabout by the pervasiveness of the Internet –but has business really changed so much?Palmer argues that it has not, rather that ebusinessis a major change in technology butnot in the underlying business values andthat it has still not delivered all its benefits,one of which is that of customer knowledge.Huge amounts of data can be collected via ebusinessand through the use of businessintelligence can be turned into valuableknowledge about the customer. Thisknowledge is an important business assetthat needs managing if it is to be fullyutilised. Rowley discusses the characteristicsof knowledge management and sets out toformulate a set of questions businesses mustask if they are to get the best from theirdatabases, turning the data into knowledgethat facilitates better business decisions.Abbott, Dobbs and Stone examine brieflywhat it takes in practice to translate highvolumes of customer data into usefulcustomer knowledge and then into profit.But what of the consumer? The Internet haschanged consumer behaviour tremendously,with more people buying over the Web as wellas from more traditional ‘‘bricks and mortar’’outlets. Dennis, Harris and Sandhu studiedshopping styles amongst teenagers anduniversity students, and speculate on thepossible future of shopping. This is contrastedby Liebermann and Stashevsky whoresearched the barriers to entry for consumersusing the Internet for purchasing and theperceived risks to usage by adults.The growth of e-business has had farreaching consequences to global markets andwe now have a new term – the digitaleconomy. Fuentelsaz, Maicas-Lo´pez andPolo examine this new scenario, adaptingtraditional frameworks and identifying thekeys to value creation in this new andimportant environment. These papers are a selection of thosepresented at the Business Intelligence ande-Marketing Workshop. Another set will bepublished in a future edition of QMRIJ. Theeditors wish to wholeheartedly thank theauthors, the reviewers, the editor of QMRIJProfessor Len Tiu Wright and of course theparticipants of the workshop for their inputand support of this special issue. Abstracts ofearlier versions of the papers were publishedin Business Intelligence and e-MarketingProceedings of the IBM Workshop,6 December 2001. Merlin Stone and Julie Abbott Previously published in: Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal, Volume 5, Number 4, 2002