Every business goes about projects in a different way. But in e-Business there are special ways of going about it as this is often a summary of many projects migrations.
These are the possible models
Single independent projects
Process orientated projects
One strategy but many process teams
One E-Business division model
One E-Business division with consultants
Single independent projects
Each division and department will initiate and partly develop an e-solution. Due to this strategy and coordination are not in one hand as there is no main corporate lead.
The executive board will not be involved in any of these projects. Therefore parallel and incompatible solutions are more frequent than with other leadership strategies.
Process orientated projects
E-commerce or e-business is structured into different sections such as eCRM (customer relationship management), eVAS (Value added Services), eProc (E-Procurement) and other processes/sections. Process orientated projects are grouped by the sections.
Therefore strategy, planning and implementation are in one hand and interconnections are more productive. But the executives will leave most of the management to the individual project leaders expecting time schedules to be met.
One strategy but many process teams
A more grown up approach is to let the executives guide by personal commitment and steering activities. These are assisted by a special team responsible for strategy and coordination.
By this, process orientated projects are guided by a program but are implemented and developed by the project teams. This allows a coordinated development of solutions able to cooperate and interact with each other.
One E-Business division model
Another possible leadership strategy is to maintain a key leadership at executive level but to group strategy and planning in one Unit. By this you have all teams in one division working together to get e-business to advance as fast as possible
One E-Business division with consultants
If you advance the previous model of division led e-business you can connect external consultants to key sections of the projects being developed by the unit groups.
At times of unoccupied IT-Positions it can be useful to use internal divisions as consultants as knowledge in a corporate is quite a lot of money worth. You can even go as far as to pass on some of the development tasks to the neighbouring divisions.