Frameworks to Support E-Business Growth Strategy

It has been almost three decades since Nolan proposed his stages hypothesis. Since then several studies on the stages of growth theory appeared in the academic literature. Despite the criticism it received, the s-tages theory is acknowledged by both the academic community and the professional as one of the most popular models to chart the progression of the IS/IT within an organisation. Although the stages model is claimed to have a descriptive as well as prescriptive nature, little has been written on the transition strategy to a more mature stage. Planning an e-business initiative involves consideration of several important issues. The decisions and considerations regarding these issues or dimensions of e-business should be integrated to form a consistent, coherent and complete strategy for the e-business initiative. Using the stages of growth for ebusiness (SOGe) framework and the e-business support framework, this paper argued that a balanced, holistic and integrated consideration of these issues will lead to an effective and complete e-business strategy.