The document provides 10 skills that are important for e-managers in the digital age: 1) Being quick and avoiding big decisions, 2) Finding and retaining employees with new skills, 3) Having an open and trusting culture, 4) Developing collaboration skills for alliances and outsourcing, 5) Insisting on discipline and standard processes, 6) Good communication skills for a multicultural environment, 7) Designing websites with less content, 8) Focusing on customer retention, 9) Developing knowledge databases, and 10) Leadership from top management to create an e-business. Mastering these 10 essential skills will help e-managers face future challenges.

1. How to be a good e-manager? Presented by V.Durgadevi

2. There will be nothing in the 10-year window except E-companies. That does not mean that brick-and-mortar will go away, but click-and-mortar will become the only means of survival. - John Chambers, CEO, Cisco systems

3. Skills of an E-manager Internet changes the skills required from managers. Some qualities are more important. The Economist’s Frances Cairncross says about the top ten things an e-manager need.

4. Ten handy hints for an e-manager Speed Being quick is more important than being large. Indeed large companies find it hard. Be speedy by avoiding big-bang decisions.

5. Good people Human resource- most important input of corporates. Find new ways to hire and – trickier – retain employees with new talents, skills & attitudes.

6. openness The open nature of the internet drives its success. Many e-businesses allows their partners, suppliers and customers to access their data. It requires trust & willingness.

7. Collaboration skills Learn the ways to collaborate & work with people. Outsourcing needs - managing more alliances. Collaborate to manage competition.

8. Discipline The internet is all about discipline, protocols and standard processes. Manager need to insist on a standard look & feel of company’s websites to avoid confusing customers.

9. Good communications Need of good communication to work in a multi-lingual & multi-cultural environment. Given the pace & complexity of change, communicating strategy to staff matters more.

10. Content-management skills Design the website with less content. Avoid too much information. “we took 80% of the information off the site, use rose 3000%” - IBM’s Pete Martinez

11. Customer focus Deepen the relationship with customers. Emphasis on retention than recruitment.

12. Knowledge management Develop the sophisticated databases to build a core of knowledge. Pooling the skills & knowledge of a workplace is important.

13. Leadership by example Top level management must spend real political capital to create an e-business. ------------ Armed with these ten essentials, the emerging e-managers can easily face the challenges ahead. Reference: The book : E-commerce – Lindsay & Straunik