When Will Your Business E-volve?

The Four e-Stages... Booz-Allen & Hamilton's 3rd Quarter 2000 issue of Strategy+Business presented a concise model for understanding the progression from grassroots e-commerce initiatives to full-fledged, self-supporting e-businesses. The authors discovered that most companies pursued Internet opportunities in a strikingly consistent manner. The article "From Bricks to Clicks: the Four Stages of E-volution," is based upon benchmarking research into ten different industries -- from automobiles to telecommunications. To date, however, scant information has been compiled on the development industry's challenge to "e-volve."

So the Real Property Strategies Team in Booz-Allen's Washington office is initiating a similar research project on the highly fragmented real estate industry. The Team's goal is to uncover the key issues and priorities for developers. They seek to determine the alliances, value webs and leverage points that will drive the paradigm shift as traditional firms move toward deployment of e-commerce businesses. Should these endeavors be embedded within an existing organizational structure or should they be set up as independent ventures? What capital structure, governance processes and human resource commitments are required? How are clients influencing the direction of Internet strategies?

If your development company would like to participate in this research project, send e-mail to Ashley Skyrme or Ashley O'Connor. Booz-Allen is seeking interested real estate firms to profile their work for existing clients. The study will analyze patterns, scale issues, and impediments faced by the development industry while "crossing the technology chasm." Conclusions from the study will be shared with PikeNet readers and contributing participants.

--Eileen Circo