The objectives of module three was to understand how the Internet as changed the way businesses operate and the issues this raises, to evaluate our own and others proposals by the giving and receiving feedback.

We learnt that there are four categories to the on-line business concept and these can be shown as a grid.

These categories are:
Business to business.
Business to customer.
Customer to business.
Customer to customer.

The set book Blown to bits by Evens and Wurster set out to show that it is information (they call it the glue that holds value chains and supply chains together) that contributed largely to business success but the ease of access of information through the Internet is dissolving this glue.
For part of this they cite the concept of richness verses reach (see exercise 2.6 for an example) where there is a trade of between how much information (richness) and how wide is your influence (reach). As one goes up the other goes down. But for Internet businesses this is not always the case and there is a test (ES Test) that can be used to judge weather a product is suitable to on-line sales.
The effects this as on traditional businesses is that to survive they have to be either:

More social.
More specialized.
More service orientated.
Have a hybrid approach.
Or just on-line.

I learnt how to put together a concept proposal and then to refine it according to the critique received, and to constructively critique someone else’s proposal.
 

References.

• Weller M. Naughton J. (2002) T171 Module 3 [online] The Open University. Available from:                                 http://t171.open.ac.uk/t171/module2 [Accessed 25 September 2002]

• Evens P. Wurster T. (2000) Blown to Bits. Boston USA. Harvaed Business School.