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relates to all of its constituencies. It doesn’t mean it is the only way but it means
that the strategies of the organization are all built around the Net. Customers will
be judging organizations based on their on-line presence; they are already
beginning to make decisions about whether or not to do business with companies
based on their on-line experience with them, whether or not they have a physical
presence. There isn’t time for a six-month corporate task force to study this. Nor
for multi-year business process reengineering projects. Consumers and business
customers are getting impatient. They know what is possible and they expect it.
Time is of the essence.
Millions of e-businesses
The next evolutionary stage of the Internet will allow for the creation of millions of
new e-businesses. They will include consumers selling directly to other
consumers -- consumer-to-consumer e-business or c-to-c. They will also include
businesses that provide information and products to consumers -- business-to-
consumer or b-to-c. They are often called e-tailers and their process e-tailing.
The b-to-c e-businesses will be of all sizes. Very small businesses like the Italian
jeweler in Verona, whose family has probably been making fountain pens for
decades, who is now operating an e-business selling pens to buyers around the
world. (They probably didn’t do an IPO to bring their web site public and their
market cap is probably modest, but every single day they are selling fountain
pens and likely making a handsome profit.) The handful of giant b-to-c
companies, such as Amazon and eBay, will likely succeed but there will be a
much larger number of e-businesses that are extensions to existing businesses.
The extensions will give those existing companies new reach. They will all
become global and, if they set the right price and have great customer service,
they will be successful by any measure. E-tailing is very much alive and well
around the world
While I am very optimistic about the future for these business-to-consumer e-
businesses, the biggest part of e-business will be e-businesses that provide
products and services to other e-businesses – business-to-business (b-to-b).
However successful business-to-consumer e-business may become, business-
to-business e-business is going to be five to ten times bigger. Meanwhile, behind
the scenes there is something even more profound beginning to develop -- a
vibrant, multidimensional agora, enabled by electronic connections that include
consumers, public sector and industrial buyers, suppliers, designers, customer
service representatives, and specialists of all kinds. They will all be participants in
electronic marketplaces (e-marketplaces) that facilitate information sharing,
standards creation, collaboration, and commercial transactions.
The e-marketplaces will be a form of trading hub and they will exist in every
industry as the major players get together and form relationships. It won’t just be
the top X companies in an industry but perhaps will include geographic or even
ethnic clustering of companies, forming their own e-marketplace as a way to
share their buying power. They will expect other e-marketplaces to be responsive
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