From E-business to Knowledge Business in Metal and Electronic Industries

Since 1995 as a start of commercial use of Internet network in Finland we have witnessed strong development in this area. This development trend has promoted e-Business to an important subject of decision-making and business planning. One of the factors behind development has been the exploitation and management of information and knowledge. Next step, which is already there observable in some of the companies, is the development related to superior management of knowledge concerning customers, suppliers and business relationships in the e-Business environment. In this paper we will argument and review our view on how the e-Business will possible evolve to what we call knowledge business era (kBusiness), in companies. This research outlines generic evolution paths using state of e-Business descriptions in selected companies in metal and electronics industries. During years 2000-2001 forty (40) company in-depth interviews with 50-60 managers responsible for e-Business decisions were conducted. Objective was to find out the state of art in e-Business strategies in each company. Interview themes were selected according to analysis of development of business environment, development of ICT (technological) environment, organizational maturity to adopt e-Business practices, and their potential to benefit from e-Business opportunities determined by companies themselves. The "Four evolutionary phases of e-Business" is suggested as one of the results of the study. This phase model seems to describe the actions made for developing e-Business in metal and electronics companies. Four qualitatively different phases of development was discovered among the Finnish metal and electronic companies. These four phases seem to be also the order of development. Phases are: ERP-phase, e.g. putting the foundation on enterprise information systems in order, SCM-phase, e.g. boosting the information systems of supply chain management, CRM-phase, e.g. deepening and improving customer relations and knowledge,