The World Wide Web (WWW) offers exciting new opportunities for small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) to extend their customer base into the global marketplace. However, in order to exploit these advantages in a global strategy, the SME needs to adopt an entirely different approach to strategic planning and management which can enable it to deploy an extensive infrastructure network based on shared resources with other firms. This paper presents a framework for the analysis and design of global strategies within the organisational context of SMEs using Internet‐based information technologies. Central to the framework – SMALL – is the transformation of the key attributes of an SME environment through a virtual organising perspective. The framework is supported by a number of case examples of SMEs operating in a global context and a detailed analysis of three Australian SMEs. It provides a new perspective to strategies for e‐business in SMEs and to e‐business research.

No abstract

This chapter discusses a case example of Internet infrastructure and e-business strategy management in small and medium-sized firms (SMFs). The case focuses on the key features of electronic business strategy using a virtual organizing framework. Based in the Swan Valley region of Perth, W. Australia, Lone River Winery Co. Ltd., has over the past five years employed the Internet to extend its business scope beyond the Australian wine market. The company produces and markets some of the choicest brands of Australian wines in the UK and Japan using an integrated online ordering and inventory control system. This has saved the company a lot of money and generated sales increases without having to invest in more staff and warehousing facilities. For Lone River Winery (LRW) Co. success on the Net has depended on some critical factors such as in-house technical expertise, continuous search for tools and techniques for managing the firm’s core operations, and the continuous reorientation of the online business model in response to changes in the local and international markets.