Organisational structure decisions form two main questions. The first is ‘How should
internal structures be changed to deliver e-marketing?’ and the second ‘How should the
structure of links with partner organisations be changed to achieve e-marketing objec-
tives?’. Once structural decisions have been made attention should be focused on
effective change management. Many e-commerce initiatives fail, not in their conceptual-
isation, but in their implementation. Chaffey (2007) describes approaches to change
management and risk management in Chapter 10.Internal structures
There are several alternative options for restructuring within a business such as the creation
of an in-house digital marketing or e-commerce group. This issue has been considered by
Parsons et al. (1996) from a sell-side e-commerce perspective. They recognise four stages in
the growth of what they refer to as ‘the digital marketing organisation’ which are still
useful for benchmarking digital marketing capabilities. A more sophisticated e-commerce
capability assessment was presented earlier in this chapter in the section on situation
review (Table 4.1). The stages are:STRATEGY FORMULATIONFigure 4.22The main challenges of e-marketing (n= 84)
Source: E-consultancy (2005)1 Gaining senior
management buy-
in/resourceStrongly
agree [1]
32.14%
(27)10
2 3 4 5 6Partially
agree [2]
35.71%
(30)Neither agree
nor disagree [3]
11.9%
(10)Partially
disagree [4]
8.33%
(7)Disagree [5]11.9%
(10)2 Gaining buy-
in/resource from
traditional marketing
functions/brands15.48%
(13)39.29%
(33)23.81%
(20)10.71%
(9)10.71%
(9)3 Gaining IT
resource/technical
support32.14%
(27)36.9%
(31)10.71%
(9)11.9%
(10)8.33%
(7)4 Finding suitable
staff15.66%
(13)44.58%
(37)22.89%
(19)13.25%
(11)3.61%
(3)
5 Finding suitable
digital media
agencies9.52%
(8)26.19%
(22)35.71%
(30)15.48%
(13)13.1%
(11)6 Other (please
enter challenge)36.84%
(7)15.79%
(3)31.58%
(6)10.53%
(2)5.26%
(1)255075100Change
management
Controls to minimise
the risks of project-
based and
organisational change.