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| Travelling at the Speed of Hype - GartnerGroup Predicts an End to E-business by 2008 | |||
| Ten-year E-business roadmap reveals how "Brick and Click" enterprises are set to be the businesses of the future and which European countries will get there first | |||
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GartnerGroup's European Symposium/ITxpo '99,
Palais de Congres, Cannes 1-4 November |
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| Cannes, France - November 1st 1999 - GartnerGroup analysts today revealed their ten-year roadmap for E-business and predicted a bumpy ride for both traditional "bricks and mortar" organisations and the newer dot.com enterprises. Speaking at GartnerGroup's Symposium ITxpo '99 conference, analysts warned that whilst technologically aggressive businesses face failure from immature technology, an unready market and poor E-business strategies, more conservative organisations who seek to avoid all risk by ignoring the 'Net-age' completely are also doomed to failure. | |||
| Revealing their E-business hype cycle (see below) to 4,000 delegates attending the conference, GartnerGroup analysts suggested that despite huge awareness of the need to adopt an E-business model, many companies will tumble into E-business disillusionment by 2001 with 75% of projects failing to deliver on their promise. | |||
| Analysts explained that the lifecycle began with the convergence of the Internet and the World Wide Web in the early nineties and is currently scaling the peak of inflated expectations as traditional bricks and mortar companies seek the magical 'e' bullet that will propel them into the digital economy. However, GartnerGroup warns that this peak will be short lived and predicts that as early as 2001, companies will go through a trough of disillusionment as they see both traditional bricks and mortar and dot.com businesses fail in their E-business attempts. | |||
| GartnerGroup Vice President of E-business Transformation, Alexander Drobik, is keen to emphasise that such failures will not be because transformation to 'e' is wrong, but because the business model, strategies and implementation will have failed. Furthermore, Drobik is optimistic that, in the long term, businesses will learn from other organisations who take time to get it right. "There is no doubt that the next few years will be tough on businesses making the 'e' transition and we expect to see a high level of disillusionment. However, by 2004 we will see a steady 'slope of enlightenment' as the true E-businesses begin to emerge. By 2006, many businesses will have made the transition, most likely to a "Brick and Click" mix, and E-business itself will cease to exist. At this point E-business will be completely embedded into an organisation's business process." | |||
| Drobik points to the need for astute business practices combined with a company vision that will cut between the hype and the reality surrounding E-business. It will be essential for companies to strike the balance between E-business aspirations and rushing headlong into an unready market with unproven business models and technology. | |||
| GartnerGroup also announced its global E-business Readiness Index (see below) which assesses the degree to which countries provide an E-business environment. By analysing the impact of the key criteria and cross-referencing the findings with the latest Dataquest Internet penetration statistics, analysts for the first time are able to reveal a ready assessment of where E-business applications are likely to flourish for the next 18-24 months. | |||
| European Internet usage is forecast to grow more than 70% in 1999 - with the number of Europeans accessing the Internet rising from 35.3 million in 1998 to 60.4 million in 1999. Although Europe is still somewhat behind the US, according to GartnerGroup's E-business Readiness Index, the UK, Germany, Netherlands and Sweden will begin to catch up in the next two years but will not achieve equivalency. During this phase GartnerGroup cites European leadership in both interactive digital television and wireless communications as being the key factors that will drive adoption rates more aggressively then in the US. | |||
| GartnerGroup's Symposium/ITxpo '99 is the IT industry's largest and most strategic conference providing business leaders with a look at the future of IT today. To accommodate the growing numbers of IT professionals who want to attend the event, whilst maintaining its high standard, GartnerGroup is for the first time limiting the number of registrations in Cannes to 4,000, and has announced it will launch an annual Spring Symposium, to take place in April 2000. | |||
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About GartnerGroup As the world's leading authority on IT, GartnerGroup provides clients with a wide range of products and services in the areas of IT advisory services, measurement, research, decision support, analysis, consulting and training. Founded in 1979, with headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut, GartnerGroup is at the centre of a global community of more than 9,300 client organisations served by analysts in 80 locations world-wide. Additional information about the company is available on the World Wide Web at www.gartner.com. |
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| For more press information on Symposium/ITxpo '99 please contact: Sarah Wadsworth at AUGUST.ONE Communications on 020-8434 5555 or email sarah.wadsworth@augustone.com |
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