Making Your Dot-com Boom

The Internet has been touted as the best thing that’s happened to business since the invention of the storefront. But that doesn’t mean that doing business electronically is the same as making sales face-to-face. In many ways, the Internet is a whole new ball game, and while the idea is still to score, the rules and ballpark are definitely different. You can’t just throw up a webpage and expect to thrive—the dot-com bust proved that. After all, business is business, and successful business requires business savvy.

And specialized tools. Creating a Winning E-Business (Course Technology/Thomson Learning, 2001), by Rice professor of management and director of the Center on the Management of Information Technology H. Albert Napier, Rice lecturer on management Stuart W. Wagner, Philip Judd, and Ollie N. Rivers, is just such a tool. Although the book is written as a textbook, it has the look and feel of any of the myriad computer primers we’ve all become familiar with. The open, engaging format is filled with pull-outs, case examples, tips, and screen shots that provide clear examples of the principles outlined by the authors.

But this book isn’t just another pretty face. Its 400-plus pages delve solidly into understanding the new economy, formulating e-business ideas, building an e-business, dealing with payment methods, defining security issues, creating an effective website, and understanding back-end systems and distribution.

Take chapter four, “Creating an E-Business Plan.” It leads off with practical guide to organizing an e-business plan, including the content that should appear in the plan and the format it should take. Each subsection of the plan, such as the executive summary, marketing plan, operations plan, and financial plan, are explained. Following that are sections on the legal forms of organization for an e-business and e-business partnerships.

Each chapter ends with a summary, exercises, case and team projects, and lists of useful links and other books for review. An extensive glossary winds up the book.

Starting up a new e-business or trying to make an existing one more profitable? Creating a Winning E-Business just might give you
the edge you need.

— Christopher Dow