ComputerLink articles by Brian Pitre

Get them to do something on the Web

Today’s Web world is not about getting visitors to read what’s on your site, it’s about getting them to do something while they’re there. Presenting your company on the Web with a revised edition of your corporate brochure is just not enough. The best Websites provide functionality, and functionality should come from Web-enabling your business processes so that they become part of your strategic business plan for e-commerce. Electronic commerce was not a part of anyone’s strategic plan two years ago, not even Microsoft’s! But now, it’s a force in nearly every industry. 

A New Culture  
The Internet is not just a technology; it’s a method of communication that an increasing number of businesses are adopting. Online business is changing the rules of commerce and challenging the way companies deal with suppliers, customers, and competitors. Moving to e-commerce requires redefining models and processes in your business and changing corporate cultures. 

The first step toward adapting to these new rules is restructuring your entire company around the idea of connectivity. You must assume everyone has access to the Internet and is connected - customers, dealers, distributors, everyone. If they are not connected yet, they will be. Inside your company, connectivity requires an infrastructure that supports Internet-wide email and the ability for personnel to use browsers in conjunction with their jobs. 

Once you succeed in adopting the Internet into your corporate culture, two new opportunities will become available: using the Internet to make money for your company, and deploying Intranets based on Internet technologies to save money by enhancing communication processes within your company. By making use of these new opportunities, your company can raise relationships with customers and suppliers to unprecedented levels of intimacy. 

New Economy  
The Internet has created a new economy by providing dramatic improvements in customer service and lowering the costs of business transactions. Companies using the Internet provide their products and services 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The drastic reduction in conducting transactions via the Web is proven by comparing costs to conventional methods. The average cost of a telephone transaction is $5.00 as compared to one penny over the Internet. The average cost of a bank transaction is $1.07 while the same transaction on the Web costs just a penny. Airline ticket processing is $8.00 on average, and $1.00 on the Web. 

The incremental cost to distribute a digital product over the Internet is $0, which is how Microsoft can justify giving away their Internet Explorer Web browser. The fact that the cost to distribute anything digital reaches absolute zero is having a dramatic influence on publishing, software, information, and anything that can be represented digitally. New economic business models are being created where giving away product leads to other forms of revenue generation such as charging for support. This means the Internet is affecting the value chain in your business and you may not realize it. 

New Competitors
Electronic commerce is changing marketing and distribution strategies because of its ability to function as a new marketing channel for products and services. Amazon.com, for example, has no inventory of their books. Their distributors drop-ship the books directly to the customer, which makes them fiercely competitive in their industry. 

Companies have different views of this capability. Some are uninterested or unaware, and some believe that Internet technology is their chief competitor. The savvy companies, however, think of Internet technology and this rapidly changing business climate as their chief weapon. 

Your competitors are not the only ones adopting the Internet. New competitors are emerging because they understand the empowerment provided by the Internet. Again, I point to Amazon.com; a company that has totally changed the way consumers buy books without established booksellers perceiving them as a competitive threat. 

New Electronic Commerce
E-commerce is applicable to almost every type of business and will only become more important as it continues to evolve. Businesses are creating new channels of distribution to either sell directly to the customer over the Internet or to drive their dealer/distributor network more efficiently. Six basic models of Web-based electronic commerce are emerging, and in almost all cases, your company fits into one of them:

• Business to business 
• Business to merchant
• Business to consumer
• Merchant to consumer
• Business to service
• Provider to customer

New opportunities exist for catalog vendors and business relations with customers and dealers as a result of e-commerce. The creation of Online catalogs is becoming easy to implement with new software development tools and applications. Lands End, LL Bean, and other major catalog companies are finding that the Internet can substantially boost business.

The Internet makes customer support easier to conduct over the Internet than almost any other venue. The Web allows you to take those redundant customer questions and create a Frequently Asked Questions area on your site. You can also use e-mail as a cost-effective way to communicate with your customers. If you are a manufacturing company, you should put your price lists Online to enhance dealer and distributor ordering systems and keep information up to date.

New Thinking
The value chain in business is shifting dramatically due to the rapid response and highly informative nature of the Internet. I suggest that you examine your business and its core competencies to determine which areas can benefit from becoming Web-enabled. Manufacturers have engineering, distributors have logistics, and retailers have customers as their primary strengths. 

If you have not begun to incorporate the Internet into your strategic plan, do so immediately. Use technology as a strategic tool to support your company in the new age of electronic business. When you look at your company from a digital perspective and Web-enable your company’s processes, remember to assume that everyone is wired and get users to do something while they’re at your site.