false 8064 econsultancy_xml You are surprised because?<br /><br /> As long as e-commerce was a fringe activity that the company was taking a punt on, sure it could fly by the seat of its pants.  But once the e-commerce activity becomes a major mart of the bottom line it is inevitably going to be brought into the main management structure and management controls.<br /><br /> These controls are mainly counter-productive of course, and often are pointless and frustrating.  However the root cause of them if you dig deep enough is the desire of the organisation to protect itself against rogue management.  In that respect it is no more different to a bank that wants to protect itself against a rogue trader, or a software house that wants to protect itself from rogue sales people.<br /><br /> I recall my experience with a major software house that shall of course be nameless.  in the early days it was known  as <strong>the</strong> yuppie software developer -  young and upwardly mobile.  Then with growth came loss of control, and I witnessed project managers taking home a 3 inch thick tender document and pricing it over a weekend.  I personally had to run a project that was so grossly underbid we ended up settling out of court.  <br /><br /> The controls that were subsequently  put in place were nothing less than a survival strategy.  I am sure that now ten years or more later, people have forgotten what the background was, and many of those controls have long lost their meaning and just become pointless form-filling exercises.  It is the job of management to rework and rebuold those processes from time to time.<br /><br /> Back to your manager jumping ship.  You already proved the lack of management professionalism in the organisations you cite because apparently there was no succession planning.   <br /><br /> This is an inevitable step in the maturity of the industry.  These organisations are going to go through a very painfull leaning process.   Embrace it - welcome it - it's more business for us.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.textor.com">Bob</a><br /> <FormattedContent xmlns="http://www.e-consultancy.com/schema/formattedContent/">You are surprised because?<LineBreak /><LineBreak /> As long as e-commerce was a fringe activity that the company was taking a punt on, sure it could fly by the seat of its pants.  But once the e-commerce activity becomes a major mart of the bottom line it is inevitably going to be brought into the main management structure and management controls.<LineBreak /><LineBreak /> These controls are mainly counter-productive of course, and often are pointless and frustrating.  However the root cause of them if you dig deep enough is the desire of the organisation to protect itself against rogue management.  In that respect it is no more different to a bank that wants to protect itself against a rogue trader, or a software house that wants to protect itself from rogue sales people.<LineBreak /><LineBreak /> I recall my experience with a major software house that shall of course be nameless.  in the early days it was known  as <Emphasis>the</Emphasis> yuppie software developer -  young and upwardly mobile.  Then with growth came loss of control, and I witnessed project managers taking home a 3 inch thick tender document and pricing it over a weekend.  I personally had to run a project that was so grossly underbid we ended up settling out of court.  <LineBreak /><LineBreak /> The controls that were subsequently  put in place were nothing less than a survival strategy.  I am sure that now ten years or more later, people have forgotten what the background was, and many of those controls have long lost their meaning and just become pointless form-filling exercises.  It is the job of management to rework and rebuold those processes from time to time.<LineBreak /><LineBreak /> Back to your manager jumping ship.  You already proved the lack of management professionalism in the organisations you cite because apparently there was no succession planning.   <LineBreak /><LineBreak /> This is an inevitable step in the maturity of the industry.  These organisations are going to go through a very painfull leaning process.   Embrace it - welcome it - it's more business for us.<LineBreak /><LineBreak /><Link URL="http://www.textor.com" Window="New">Bob</Link><LineBreak /></FormattedContent> 2006-04-20T11:13:04+01:00 true 1616 4565 103710 2006-04-20T11:13:04+01:00