Application of QFD for e-Business planning

E-Business represents new avenues for sustainable competitive advantage. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are now expected to be digital-ready to continue as trading partners for their customers. SMEs require socio-technical skills and organizational skills and know-how to comprehend e-Pote...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Production planning & control 2004-12, Vol.15 (8), p.802-818
Main Authors: Tan, Boon L., Tang, Nelson K. H., Forrester, Paul L.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
balanced scorecard
Competitive advantage
Corporate planning
E-Business
Electronic commerce
Operations management
Organizational behavior
planning framework
QFD
Small & medium sized enterprises-SME
Small business
SME
Studies
Technological planning
value chain
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Summary:E-Business represents new avenues for sustainable competitive advantage. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are now expected to be digital-ready to continue as trading partners for their customers. SMEs require socio-technical skills and organizational skills and know-how to comprehend e-Potentials and transform them into e-Implementation. An e-Business planning framework is proposed here which links both in strategic and operations management by applying quality function deployment (QFD, also known as house of quality). The balanced scorecard (BSC) will be used to provide an organization overview to objectives setting, critical in ensuring e-Initiatives are aligned with organization vision and objectives. The paper presents the pilot stage of this research project, discussing how the proposed planning framework works. Data from a case study are employed, and expert advice was sought to prioritize and rank the system components (the 'whats') and their interrelationships. The paper begins with an introduction to the importance of e-Business to SMEs, and a brief review of the key components of the proposed framework. Next follows a discussion of the case study and how the framework can be applied in this particular situation. The paper concludes with suggestions for proposed future work; the conclusion can also be extended to provide a series of matrices to provide a clear, step-by-step planning framework for SMEs which are planning and implementing e-Business, by converting customer needs into feasible e-Business plans.
ISSN:0953-7287
1366-5871
DOI:10.1080/09537280412331309190