Electronic Services Delivery (ESD)

Creating a successful Electronic Service Delivery (ESD) strategy is complicated, but for many organizations, it is a necessity in today's rapidly changing economy.

Recent International Data Corporation (IDC) research predicts that e-commerce will rocket to more than $1 trillion by 2003. In fact, IDC predicts that 80% percent of business will be conducted online by 2003, compared with just 36% in 1998. For many businesses, these statistics mean that an e-business is a necessary channel, not an optional one.

Consequently, the Internet is not only rapidly becoming an essential channel for retailers; it is also changing the traditional business and economic models as organizations leverage the power of the Internet for government-to-government, government-to-business and business-to-business applications. With responsibilities for deliverables such as Service Desk and Service Management, Enterprise Messaging projects, Integration of Networks or Network resources, Standardization of Desktop resources and facilities, mobile communications, coordinated client access, Information integration, Security, and the standardization of Application Environments, the challenge to harmonize and deliver these services is significant.

With the subsequent rush to deliver services online, many organizations ignore the risks and potential pitfalls in creating a successful e-business, or ESD strategy solutions. When creating e-commerce solutions and ESD strategies, companies face unique situations, different issues than faced by offline or "brick and mortar" organizations. For example in offline companies, departments separate skill sets within an organization. Rarely do unrelated departments interact. In fact, different departments often have different priorities, cultures, policies, and procedures. However, when creating an online business these traditionally separate departments such as finance, technology and business strategy must work together toward a specific goal. This union may fundamentally change an organization's core value proposition.

Our experience has taught us that technology should not blithely be developed around existing business processes. Neither should business processes be created exclusively around a technology solution. Technology is in place to support the business development and delivery of Electronic Service, but technology cannot act alone. Business objectives must be matched to existing Information Technology (IT) resources, but in order to do this, those responsible for technical services need to relate to business planners.

In case of technology solutions being modeled around existing business processes, bottlenecks in the existing processes are sometimes modeled into the technology; the technology is not then leveraged to its full potential. In case of business processes re-engineered to fit the technology, the business process can become compromised to fit the model incorporated into the technology.

The solution to this problem is a new approach.

Today's development groups are ill equipped to build the next generation of Internet applications. Organizations must form production teams, diverse groups made up of IT, and other business units.

Prescient has taken this concept one step further with the introduction of their Business Process Improvement solution that helps organizations successfully think, build and run e-businesses, and to design, develop and deploy effective Electronic Service Delivery.

Prescient created Business Process Innovation to nurture a team of people with diverse skills that are assembled for a common goal. These seasoned, cross-functional service teams understand the unique vocabularies that colleagues from other disciplines use, and they understand the perspectives that the other parties provide. As a result, these teams serve as leaders throughout the ESD solution, able to avoid potential pitfalls that lead to lengthy and costly delays.