چارچوبی برای اندازه گیری عملکرد در محیط کسب و کار الکترونیکی

The advent of networked economy calls for new understanding of business, and it is evidenced by the visible trend of traditional businesses either migrating to e-business or expanding to embrace electronic commerce. Constant change in the environment means continually evolving strategies, new products, new processes and new technologies to adopt. E-business metrics are needed to measure performance with the firm’s strategic focus in mind, and they must go beyond the Web metrics that are discussed in the usual electronic commerce context. The basic objective of this paper is to present a framework for developing performance measurement metrics in the e-business environment. The proposed framework, designed by incorporating the balanced scorecard methodology with existing taxonomies of e-business models and the theories behind them, is intended to enable firms to develop new metrics that are needed to implement e-business strategies and tactics.

The advent of networked economy calls for new understanding of business. Based on three dimensions of business (product, process, and delivery agent), three categories of business can be identified, as shown in Fig. 1 – namely, traditional business, partial e-business, and pure e-business [76]. There is a visible trend of traditional businesses either migrating to e-business or expanding to incorporate e-business. To compete in a rapidly changing environment, many firms have adopted organizational designs, such as networked incubators, which provide for quick response, innovation and entrepreneurial behavior.Constant change in the e-business environment means continually evolving strategies, new products, new processes and new technologies to adopt. In this environment there is a need for integration of information and organizational design to provide for strategy implementation and organizational learning. The information system must promote cooperation among managers and empowered employees to move the organization toward achieving strategic goals. In a collaborative environment, an important component of an information system is the reporting of performance metrics. As more firms have ventured into e-business, management accountants have worked with finance, information technology, and other professionals to incorporate new metrics into performance measurement systems. Metrics are used to implement strategy, manage operations and track performance over time. The basic objective of this paper is to present a framework for developing performance measurement metrics in the e-business environment. Our e-business metrics framework is based on the well-known Balanced Scorecard methodology and the existing taxonomies of e-business models found in the literature, and the theories behind the e-business models. The proposed framework is intended to provide a structure and contents for firms to develop new metrics that are needed to implement e-business strategies and tactics.

We present a model that provides a framework for developing performance measurement metrics for e-business. Our e-business metrics model was developed using insights from taxonomies of e-business models, the IT literature, and the performance measurement literature. We provide a framework for firms to develop metrics that are needed to implement e-business strategies and tactics. We present eight issues for C-suite executives and seven issues for P-suite executives. We identify eleven key implementation issues for metrics which pose important questions must asked about the metrics the firm is using or plans to use. Our framework provides basic structure for firms relevant to developing a performance measurement metrics useful in strategy implementation of e-business initiatives. Our framework for performance measurement in an e-business environment has limitations. We have presented our view of key issues in the framework. A case can be made that we omitted some issues that are important to some firms in Table 1, Table 2 and Table 3. We acknowledge this limitation. We have provided a conceptual framework to provide guidance for firms with varying business models. There are cost-benefit issues for firms. We agree with Neely and Adams [56], who observe that the interest in performance measurement has resulted in the creation of numerous performance measurement frameworks and methodologies. They conclude that the multiple, seemingly conflicting, measurement frameworks and methodologies can exist because they all can add value. The various methods use a different set of lenses to provide a unique perspective on performance. Using our framework should be helpful to firms in designing and using a lens to provide a perspective of performance for e-business. We believe that our framework has relevance to firms using the balanced scorecard, performance prism, or another performance measurement model. Some of the C-suite issues can be directly mapped to the balanced scorecard and performance prism perspectives. Our framework can be used in conjunction with these performance measurement models to provide some structure to the e-business view of C-suite and P-suite executives. We expect e-business to continue to change at a fast pace. As a result, our framework will evolve. There are many opportunities for future research in performance measurement in e-business. In-depth case studies of how e-business firms use metrics at the C-suite and P-suite levels to implement strategy and formulate strategy can provide insight into the state of the art. Case studies may show that some firms are not concerned with some the issues presented in our framework. We may find that some issues are not viewed as being important by firms with certain types of business models, or firm size and complexity may be an important variable.