ABSTRACT
Relatively few companies (with the exception of the ‘pure-play’ or ‘dotcom’ brigade) are able to start with a ‘clean sheet of paper’ as far as Internet operations are concerned. For most companies, setting up Internet operations involves a significant degree of cultural and structural change. It also usually means running both ‘traditional’ and ‘new’ business alongside each other, and developing an appropriate degree of integration between them to create useful synergies. Although a number of lessons can be learned from the bursting of the dotcom bubble (and these are considered where relevant), the main focus of this text is upon the challenges faced by ‘bricks and mortar’ organizations as they introduce and develop their online operations alongside their established business activities.
