INTRODUCTION

There are a substantial number of tasks that have to be done for your IT architecture and systems, including these activities:

• Assess your current IT systems and technology infrastructure to determine e-business readiness. What do you have and what problems are there?

• Evaluate your IT policies and procedures to determine if there are changes needed to support e-business. How do you do the work and how should it be done differently?

• Assess current IT staffing workload and skills and determine what might have to be outsourced. Who is available and what skills and support do you need?

• Review potential e-business software, hardware, and network products. What is out there that you can take advantage of?

• Develop your new e-business IT architecture and support structure. Where do you want to end up?

This chapter expands on the work you did in Chapter 2. As you can see from the list, the work involves looking into how IT assigns resources and what IT skill levels exist. These are important because you can do all that you want with hardware and the network, but if you lack the qualified staff and their time, you are in trouble.

PURPOSE AND SCOPE