When Ford Motor Company saw rapidly changing technologies dramatically impacting how the world did business it also recognized that for the organization to remain competitive incorporating these technologies would be critical. The emergence of e-commerce presented an opportunity to improve company structure for information sharing and process changes that could also enhance relationships with suppliers, dealers and customers. This technology would, in the president's words, " allow us to integrate the diverse processes that make up a complex business in a way that was very difficult to do before." The real challenge would be if and how Ford could effectively implement the change to transform how it did business both inside and outside the organization.

The Problem

The idea of moving to a more efficient e-commerce lacked a fully developed implementation plan and did not identify ways to overcome the barriers associated with making the system fully utilized...