The Human Face of Electronic Business: From Component Supplier to Strategic Business Partner Through IT-Supported Networks

The introduction of e-business practices on the Internet is making companies reevaluate and redefine their existing intra-organizational and interorganizational relationships. The purpose of this paper is to explore in what ways Internet communication can facilitate the integration between companies within a business network. We study the implementation of a web-based communication platform in an SME network with more than twenty companies. Their objective with the web-based platform is (1) to increase global marketing via the Internet and (2) to improve communication both internally between the member companies and externally with other business partners. With a survey we investigated if the participating companies perceive that better IT-support help them gain additional competitive advantages in the marketplace. Based on the result from the study, this paper argues that there is a need to complement the generally technical-driven discussion regarding electronic business solutions with a strategic, organizational, managerial and relationship-oriented perspective, thus what we refer to as “giving ebusiness a human face”.