Net Markets: Driving Success in the B2B Networked Economy

B2B is alive and well!Most prominent technology leaders, business writers and analysts maintain that B2B is dead. Not so, say Tom Dagenais and David Gautschi, thought-leaders in the IT consulting area of Deloitte & Touche. They show that, in reality, B2B is in its infancy and will be around for a long time to come.While they admit that up until now it has not been a roaring success, B2B is the one area of e-business that has emerged as having a significant impact on profitability. Through real-life case studies of successful '¬" and not-so-successful '¬" businesses, they demonstrate that the impact of B2B initiatives is not just about technology.Net Markets provides the tools to build new business models that allow buyers and sellers to interact, creating tremendous business markets. Within the context of your own organization'¬"s goals and direction, you will be able to use this framework to assess the relevance and value of the many e-business tools and technologies available.Dagenais and Gautschi introduce their MaRCot Value Framework and MIDST Success Drivers. Using these models, Net Markets explores in detail the Seven Key Trends every business should consider:1. The rise of private Net Markets2. The formation of exchange-to-exchange Net Markets3. The re-optimization of internal business processes for a 24 x 7 business4. The creation of optimized value chain processes5. The development of industry-wide standards for transaction processing6. The creation of value-added risk management services7. The maturing of Net Markets to become market-efficientNet Markets is about two key concepts: the business drivers of B2B which make its future success inevitable, and the business value that B2B can deliver to any business. It is the indispensable guide to the next generation of e-commerce applications.'¬SB2B is Dead'¬ will be recorded for all time as one of those statements we look back on and say '¬Sif they only knew what was still to come.'¬ Predicting our future is not an easy task.But if we look back in our recent history, we see that catastrophic failures in business are not new and certainly not constrained to any one industry or era. For instance, most '¬Sexperts'¬ did not see a use for electric power outside of the light bulb. But by the late 1890s copious small power plants had been built by different companies whose systems were incompatible. They quickly centralized, avoiding a market of confusion '¬" different currents, mismatched voltages and irreconcilable wiring systems.Compare the parallels of that scenario to B2B and the Internet today: many different standards, many incompatibilities, many providers. As with the electric industry, the maturing of B2B and the standardization of transactions are foregone conclusions.Net Markets shows how these evolutions will create the foundation for highly cost-effective B2B transactions. A consolidation of the market will occur and the number of vertical, horizontal, and industry Net Markets will reduce to a number that is supportable by the economic climate created.With knowledge gleaned from Deloitte & Touche'¬"s rapidly growing IT Solutions practice, Tom Dagenais and David Gautschi share what'¬"s working and what isn'¬"t in the rapidly evolving world of e-commerce.David Gautschi is the author of 'Net Markets: Driving Success in the B2B Networked Economy', published 2002 under ISBN 9780070893085 and ISBN 007089308X.