IBM measures Web use for e-business
By Brian Carroll -- Furniture Today, November 12, 2001
Chicago — To understand the different states of e-business is to ask to what extent a company is "using the Internet to accomplish a business function," according to Loren Zeller, vice president of e-business solutions marketing for IBM.
According to Zeller, who was a part of the recent Direct and Interactive Marketing Assn. annual conference here, said there are six states, including three labeled "early" states of adoption. Approximately 90% of all small and mid-size companies, which would include the vast majority of the furniture industry, are in states 0 or 1 (see accompanying chart at right).
"We have to realize that we're still at the beginning of what will be a 20-year re-wiring of the world economy," Zeller told attendees at the conference. "What we should be asking is, 'What is the customer doing on the Web?'"
The answer to the question should determine the organizational architecture of any business-to-business site or extranet, which should vary depending on the objectives of the users or customers accessing it.
Extranets are a $1.5 billion per year business for IBM, Zeller said.
Zeller cautioned against reading too much into the failures of dot-com companies over the past 18 months or so. Approximately 60% of businesses overall fail, so the rate of dot-com crashes actually has been fairly normal.
"They were hyped when they came on the scene," he said. "In the same way, their failures have been hyped."
| Early | Integrating | Advanced | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Access | Publish | Transact | Integrate internally | Integrate externally | Adapt dynamically |
| Computerized establishment. May use the Web for e-mail, and may support a simple home page. | Maintains a multi-page Web site. Uses the Web for e-mail, one-way communication or publishing of business information. | Uses the Web to integrate business processes across enterprises. | Uses the Web to improve and/or integrate core business processes within the enterprise. | Uses the Web to integrate business processes across enterprises. | Uses the Web as the foundation for existing in a digital community. |
