Technical, Managerial, and Organizational Changes in Adapting an E-Commerce Model in Civil Engineering Design and Consulting Services

Abstract

Encouraging experiments and practices in e-commerce over the past several years are now contributing to and enhancing our understanding of the critical issues involved in leveraging the potential of these technologies. The e-commerce uptake of civil engineering design and consulting faces tough resistance on the technical, managerial, and organizational fronts where industries have developed and evolved to support the traditional business model. In this paper we discuss some anticipated technical, managerial, and organizational changes that are necessary in adapting the e-commerce model for our business. We present rationales for each proposed change, based on both e-commerce prerequisites and business requirements. Technical changes include standardization and e-documentation of business processes, dissemination and simplification of complex processes, digital transformation of business processes and interfaces, reduction of manual executions, and integration and optimization of the entire process. Managerial changes include job management from project centered to process centered, labor management from task centered to data centered, and supply management from organization centered to market centered. Organizational changes include elimination of middle management, breaking down of barriers between disciplines, and integration of information management.