Managing Critical Success Factors in a B2b Setting

When information systems (IS) are developed and implemented, in any context, a number of success factors determine whether or not the effort will succeed. Attention to success factors helps to avoid some costly mistakes, and speeds up the way change is managed. This paper is focused on how to manage critical success factors (CSF) in organisations involved in standards-based Business-to-Business (B2B), with a focus on organisational CSFs. An existing CSF framework in IS planning is applied theoretically to a B2B setting. Activities in a B2B standards implementation model are compared and matched against the framework. Results show that the framework is suitable for planning B2B implementations, essentially for strategic planning. Based on these results we have developed concrete guidelines to be used in the planning phase by strategic planners. Future work will consist of empirical validation, further detailing the guidelines in order to develop a practically useful ”tool” for managing CSF in a B2B standards implementation.