After a decade of treating the topic of e-commerce with awe and confusion, we can now step back and analyze the subject more objectively. From launching an electronic storefront to managing complex supply chain operations, most companies have ventured into e-commerce; but even the best-run bricks-and-mortar enterprises have run into snags in the virtual world. Even mighty Wal-Mart, for example, took its website through several redesigns and sales strategies, and Borders eventually outsourced its Internet sales activites to rival, Amazon. Despite the horror stories of abysmal customer service, lost information, catastrophic meltdowns, and the excesses of the dot.com boom, the Internet is now an essential tool and medium for conducting business. Today, the key question is not whether your firm should invest in e-commerce, but how you can do so most profitably.

In Implementing E-Commerce Strategies, Marc Epstein goes beyond the hype to focus on the practical angles of designing, executing, and successfully managing an e-commerce strategy that works for your company. While many books have addressed the what and why of e-commerce, Epstein zeroes in on the elusive how. Showcasing the experiences of 32 companies (both successes and failures) in a wide variety of industries, he explores such issues as corporate culture and strong leadership from the executive suite, integrating e-commerce into corporate strategy, aligning goals, accountabilities, and performance metrics to support e-commerce initiatives, and building systems that can measure the value of your e-commerce investments. No business can avoid e-commerce-and its capacity for creating spectacular opportunities or wasting precious time and resources. How your firm handles these challenges may very well determine whether or not it will survive.

MARC J. EPSTEIN is Distinguished Research Professor of Management, Jones Graduate School of Management, Rice University. He is also Visiting Professor and Hansjoerg Wyss Visiting Scholar in Social Enterprise at the Harvard Business School. He previously held positions at Stanford Business School and INSEAD (the European Institute of Business Administration). A specialist in corporate strategy, governance, and performance management, he is the author or coauthor of twelve books (including Counting What Counts and Measuring Corporate Environmental Performance) and over 100 academic and professional papers. He currently serves as Editor-in-Chief of the journal, Advances in Management Accounting, and consults to leading corporations and governments around the world.