Biz Web Grows Up -
Helps Manage Smart, Grow Global

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Not only does the B2B marketplace enable business owners to market efficiently to other business owners, globally, but the new generation of Net tools and resources goes beyond instant transfer of information and makes possible the transformation of business itself. By giving small business access to sophisticated management support, by increasing the business velocity and allowing its managers to concentrate on their competencies the very nature of a business can be transformed and its chances for success dramatically increased.

In "Business@The Speed of Thought", Bill Gates says that only managers who master the digital universe will gain competitive advantage. In other words, use the Net to leverage your business in every conceivable way....from eliminating paperwork to acquiring top level skills at small company prices, or watch yourself and your business become toast.

The Net has already transformed communication; it is now in the process of lifting business to a higher, more efficient, productive and profitable level with a new generation of tools and resources which have the potential to transform business itself.

Pioneers on the Net have always been awed by the Net's capabilities and many have foreseen its potential for shaping the future of business, education, entertainment and just about every sector of life. But in the beginning, it was all about email and ceaseless news. Then came the first tools for business.

Looking back on the first generation of tools and resources, they may seem elementary, although they certainly collapsed time and produced outstanding financial results

Business first got on board by putting up their own web sites and selling to consumers - B2C (business to consumer) as it's known in Net lingo. Dell Computer is probably the penultimate story, beginning selling its products online in mid-1996. Dell's sales rose from $1 million a week to $1 million a day, then $5 million and now $17 million a day and counting.

The Net also began to offer resources for small businesses -- online tools for public relations, online advertising, direct mail, market research, sales, credit, recruiting, training and tech support.

In essence, the Net was used to move information products or bits in real time and to dramatically speed up the delivery of physical products such as computers or cars through almost instant digital communication and coordination.

We are now moving into the 2nd generation of Net tools and resources, vastly more sophisticated and potentially more far reaching and dramatic in their impact.

Business to Business Market

The first area impacted will be the business to business market. Forrester forecasts that the B2B, Business to business electronic commerce market, reaching $60 billion in the year 2000 will be worth $1.5 trillion in 2003,overshadowing growth in the consumer e-commerce space.

According to Forrester Research the online market size for business services was estimated at $22 billion in 1999, which is predicted to become a $220 billion online services marketplace by 2003, still less than 8% of the overall sector.

"Primary service catagories include financial (7.3 billion in 1999), professional($4.4 billion), administrative support ($3.9 biillion), corporate travel ( $5 billion) and telecommunications($1.5 billion). Only 5.9% of financial services will be online , but that sector will bring in $80 billion, or more than a third of the total market.. E-commerce spending by small businesses alone is projected to reach $3,750 per business by 2001.

The B2B marketplace enables business owners to find other business owners, globally, to showcase their own products and services and to buy or sell products and services from either other in a more efficient market, to negotiate the deal online, and, in the case of many services, to use the site itself as a platform for delivery .

Business effectiveness and profitability will be greatly enhanced by personalization software which can reconfigure the site, on the fly, based on customer preferences, and measure, in real time the dollar amount of transactions, and which sites on the Web the purchaser referrals came from.

Managing Your Business -- Process Improvement

The new generation of Net tools and resources goes beyond instant transfer of information and makes possible the transformation of business itself. By giving small business access to sophisticated management support, by increasing the business velocity and allowing its managers to concentrate on their competencies the very nature of a business can be transformed and its chances for success dramatically increased.

A new breed of Net companies now offer cutting edge technology to support business success: shared business applications and software to help execute against objectives; ebusiness solutions; an online marketplace for employee benefits for small business; teleworking tools and resources; customer experience solutions; strategic pricing intelligence and purchasing; facilities maintenance; small business loans and an automated employment recruiting process.

For businesses who commit to seize the full advantage of the Net, and the discipline to maintain the rapid learning curve,the future offers possibilities which could scarcely be imagined a few years ago. The lesson: Go for it now, and keep leveraging up.