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E-Markets Growing Business
Use the internet to transform the way you do business with your customers, partners, suppliers, and employees.

In today's highly competitive marketplace, it is more important than ever for growing businesses to enhance customer service, maximize productivity, and control costs. Customers are demanding better service and lower prices, and competitors are continually raising the bar with new solutions to meet customer needs. Within the last two years, the Internet has emerged as a critical tool for growing businesses willing and able to leverage its immense capabilities to solve problems and boost their bottom lines.

Growing businesses are flocking to the Internet. And once these companies are on line, they use the Internet more frequently and for a broader range of key business applications, according to market analyst International Data Corp (IDC). This time spent on the Internet pays off---IDC notes that companies accessing the Internet tend to experience both higher revenues and greater growth in revenues.

Growing businesses first turned to the Internet to obtain industry, competitor, or product information. For many, the Internet has now become a way to streamline business operations, improve customer service, and close sales. Much of this increased Internet use can be tied to the emergence of a new class of solutions that will drive growing businesses' success: Internet business solutions.

Internet Business Solutions Shape the Office of the 21st Century
Internet business solutions are software and hardware tools that tap into the power of the Internet. They deliver dramatic productivity improvements to growing companies by opening access to information, resources, and services through a networked business environment. They set new standards for relationships between a growing business and its customers, partners, suppliers, and employees. Internet business solutions can enhance your business productivity in three primary ways:

Providing new ways to ensure customer loyalty through on-demand information and commerce options

Building and maintaining relationships with your suppliers and partners with real-time business-to-business applications

Improving employee efficiency through collaborative work arrangements and easy access to job-specific and company data

Empowerment for Customers
The Internet has become a key tool in increasing customer loyalty. A company's Web site, together with Internet business solutions such as customer relationship management and e-commerce, can extend the level of personal customer service that growing businesses deliver today.

Improve access to information---Both consumers and businesses look to the Internet to find information instantly. By turning a Web site into an information vehicle, growing businesses can give their customers hassle-free, around-the-clock access to company and product information. Simply providing basic information on product availability and pricing can increase customer satisfaction levels without major investments. By going the extra step to track site areas that customers visit, you can gain important insight into your customer's interests. This, in turn, can make it easier for you to provide customers with the data they need to make buying decisions, reducing your sales cycles and lowering your cost of sales.


Enhance customer service---Internet business solutions and the Web can be implemented to provide various levels of "self-support" for customers. Customers can obtain critical information about a growing business' products and services, or learn answers to common questions---without having to initiate direct contact. When done effectively, this can improve the quality of service a growing business provides while holding down staffing levels.

Simplify business transactions---Electronic commerce Internet business solutions convert company Web sites into a powerful source of revenue, capable of reaching millions of Internet buyers worldwide. More and more customers are comfortable buying products and services over the Web---in fact, according to the Yankee Group, in the United States, business-to-business commerce will grow from $138 billion in 1999 to over $541 billion in 2003. According to IDC, worldwide Internet commerce will grow from $50.4 billion in 1998 to over $1 trillion in 2003. Customers appreciate the convenience and simplicity of Web commerce. They simply click on "Buy it now" and the e-commerce Internet Business Solution manages the entire purchase transaction from credit authorization, payment, and fraud protection to tracking, fulfillment, and reporting. Your customers can configure products, place orders, make payments, check product availability, and monitor order/shipment status around the clock. Because customers place and verify their orders themselves, electronic orders are less prone to error. Also, efficiency and customer satisfaction rise as order rework and product returns are reduced, all of which holds down your overall cost of sales.

Reach a broader customer base---The Internet dramatically expands geographic sales coverage, enabling a company to build awareness and sell to customers worldwide, opening markets that might otherwise be impossible to reach. Now that buyers are using the Web to find and qualify potential vendors, growing businesses have new opportunities for lead generation and sales. Companies can place advertisements on other Web sites frequented by potential customers. Visitors to your Web site can self-qualify by filling out forms to request contact by sales representatives. Advertising Ventures Inc.
Advertising Ventures Inc.---A 15-person advertising agency, tapped into the Internet to enhance its client services capabilities. According to President Stephen Rosa, the Internet has placed the Providence, R.I.-based agency on a level playing field with larger agencies. By using Internet business solutions, the firm has been able to provide top-level customer support and tap new markets. Two European companies discovered Advertising Ventures through its Web site, and signed on as clients---something Rosa says never would have happened without the Internet. Advertising Ventures maintains its relationship with these firms primarily through its Internet capabilities. Remote users can now download documents housed on the firm's network, collaborate on server-based documents, and transfer files via e-mail. Advertising Ventures plans to post project status reports within a secure section of its Web site so that international clients can get up-to-the-minute progress updates, 24-hours a day, seven days a week.

Collaboration with Suppliers and Business Partners
Building and maintaining business-to-business relationships is one of the foremost opportunities the Internet presents to growing businesses. According to IDC, 68 percent of all businesses with fewer than 100 employees sell to other businesses. Internet Business Solution tools such as Web-based procurement, supply chain management, and trading community software raise the ability of businesses to cooperate and collaborate to new levels.

Improve inventory management---Over the Internet, companies can easily share current information and work together to optimize inventory management. This is often done via an extranet, or private link over the Internet between a company and its selected business partners. By continuously providing up-to-the-minute data on both supply and distribution inventory, as well as sales trends and forecasts, extranets allow growing businesses to make more timely and accurate purchasing decisions. This can reduce your costs, allow you to better manage your supply and demand, improve your cash flow, and increase customer satisfaction.

Reduce travel and communications overhead---Online collaboration can reduce, if not eliminate, the need for travel, phone calls, faxes, and overnight mail. Sharing designs, documents, and presentations interactively reduces the time and operational costs of partner and supplier communications. As many growing businesses have already discovered, the Internet can identify and prequalify potential suppliers or business partners, reducing communications and travel costs associated with prequalification.

Collapse time-to-market---Online collaboration lets growing companies move faster. Time-to-market can be reduced by using collaboration software to align internal and external resources, and simultaneously review product designs, proposals, contracts, and other documents. By streamlining the processes associated with gathering, organizing and reviewing information, companies can get their products or services to market ahead of the competition. This allows growing businesses to maintain a competitive edge.

One Distribution, Inc.---At its inception, a third-party fulfillment company, designed an entirely Internet-based infrastructure. As a supplier to other companies, it manages the majority of its communications, including electronic funds transfers and electronic data interchange, through an extranet. It also uses a file transfer protocol (FTP) site to distribute order summaries, inventory updates, customer data, and shipping details to its partners. Because One Distribution operates over the Internet, its physical location is unimportant to the companies it serves. This has allowed the company to relocate from Los Angeles to South Dakota to take advantage of lower operating costs. It maintains the productivity of its technology in this new home with remote support from its technology provider. According to One Distribution, the company's goal is to fit seamlessly with its business partners' operations. It's all about information exchange. Using the internet, we can exchange information with partners as though we are part of their companies.

Productivity Tools for Employees
By finding innovative ways to improve employee productivity, growing companies can conduct more efficient business with their customers, partners, and suppliers. Internet business solutions such as sales-force automation, intranet groupware, employee self-service, human resources management, and Web-based training can deliver profound new productivity benefits to your employees while streamlining your internal operations.

Improve customer relationships---Sales-force productivity tools empower representatives by allowing them to build stronger relationships with customers, while enabling them to respond faster and more efficiently to customer needs. Sales representatives can manage appointments more efficiently, send correspondence; access company, product, or customer information; develop product configurations, and generate quotes even while they are traveling or at a customer site.

Raise the standards for excellence---Though employing knowledgeable, well-trained employees is critical for growing businesses, providing ongoing training and education is cost prohibitive. Web-based training greatly reduces time and costs associated with training. With Web-based courseware, you can establish online training centers for employees by creating Web pages comprising self-paced training modules. Employees train at their own pace, at their desktops, eliminating the need for a central training location reducing travel time and cost.

Enhance team performance---Many firms are turning to collaborative technologies to expand the capability of teams and build a greater sense of community in the workplace. Technology-enabled teams are less bound by space and time, and they can be structured specifically by tasks. Exchanging information via e-mail can dramatically increase team productivity and responsiveness. The functionality of groupware extends well beyond e-mail---group calendaring/scheduling, data conferencing, videoconferencing, group document editing, workflow, and many other collaboration applications are now available in Web-based versions and more enter the market every day.

Share knowledge---While an intranet can serve as a repository for easy form, policy, and procedure access, it can also be used to distribute current project information and "best practices" among employees. This type of sharing turns information into actionable knowledge and ultimately provides your organization with a sustainable competitive advantage. Intranets increase a company's rate of learning by making information available to any employee, anytime and anywhere. The intranet easily becomes a platform for corporate knowledge management, whereby you can manage knowledge resources and intellectual capital as you would other corporate assets.

Implementing any new business process can be a challenge. But growing businesses can rest assured that Internet business solutions can be put into service quickly and easily.

Evolution, not revolution---Taking advantage of Internet business solutions and Internet technologies is an evolutionary process. The market research firm Access Media International reports that over the past two years, small growing businesses have aggressively adopted new Internet technologies. In 1997, companies with 20 or fewer employees using the Internet already used software applications on local-area networks (LANs) to connect users in an office to shared resources such as printers, files, and Internet access. In 1998, as the Internet became more critical to their operations, these companies moved rapidly to add servers and shared Internet access over high-speed data lines. Today, many of their Web sites offer e-commerce catalogs. Companies with 20 to 99 employees using the Internet are moving even further ahead to adopt broadband connections and wide area networks (WANs). These companies have also begun to integrate their front-office and back-office operational systems.

Companies that want to introduce Internet business solutions into their applications mix need to understand how these systems challenge established work patterns and habits. It is important that a firm carefully manage:

Your company can begin to assess its own readiness for Internet Business Solution adoption by answering the following questions:

Strategic Plans---How large is your company today? Where will it be a year from now? How many company sites will you have? How many employees will work in your company?

As growing numbers of employees increase their use of networked applications across a greater number of geographic locations, the capacity of your company's network begins to have a significant impact on productivity.

Technology---What is the state of your current technology infrastructure? Do you currently use a LAN? Do you take advantage of shared Internet access? Is your company Web enabled? How technologically savvy is your staff?

If your company has been postponing the adoption of these technologies, you could be putting yourself at a competitive disadvantage. It may be time to begin evaluating how to put technology to work for your business.

Your Competition---What kind of Internet presence do your competitors have? Do they have Web sites? Do their Web sites meet customer needs and expectations? What is the likelihood of your competitors adopting e-commerce?

Widespread deployment of Internet and e-commerce technologies throughout your industry makes them a wise choice. If your competitors are on the Web, then you probably need to be there too.

Markets---What kind of geographic market are you focused on (such as local, statewide, regional, national, or international)? Are you looking to expand your business to reach a broader customer base? Can the Internet give your company a global presence? Are your products or services suited to Web-based commerce? Do customers look on the Web for a product or service such as yours?

If you want to sell outside your traditional geographic boundaries, marketing over the Internet is a highly cost-effective means of achieving an international or global presence. However, you need to be certain that customers will be willing to buy a product or service such as yours over the Web.

Customer Relations---Are your customers on line today? Are they currently buying products and services on line? Do they go to the Web to look for information on products or services such as yours? Do you view improving customer service and communications as important?

Internet business solutions and the Internet will help you acquire and retain valued customers by making customer information readily available regardless of the customer point of contact.

Supplier relations---Are your suppliers and partners on line? Can you communicate with them via the Internet? How frequently do you receive inventory management information? Would your company benefit by better control of inventory and supplies? Do you ever need to use electronic data interchange (EDI) or other electronic payment technology?

Productivity---Would you like to find new ways to increase employee productivity? How do teams and groups within your company collaborate? Do you currently have a training program in place? What methods are used by your employees to share knowledge and information?

Internet business solutions for automation and collaboration can leverage the Internet to deliver profound productivity improvements to your business.

Profitability---How will e-commerce affect your costs? Will it affect your prices, margins, cost of sales? Do you view improving internal cost controls as a priority? Is decreasing or managing your inventory of concern

Internet business solutions and Internet technologies offer significant new ways to control costs and improve your bottom line.

Taking the Next Step
Determining answers to the above questions can be your first step in using the Internet to transform the way you do business. The answers will also facilitate finding a solutions partner best suited to help you select, implement, manage, and support the Internet business solutions that address your requirements. To ensure that you begin this process effectively:


Plan your technology infrastructure---Plan now for the evolution and growth of your computing and networking infrastructure. Become knowledgeable about new Internet Business Solution products and services which meet the specific ease-of-use, reliability and security needs of growing businesses such as yours.

Anticipate your networking upgrade needs---A growing business' LAN or WAN may need to be upgraded to realize the full potential of the Internet. Examples include moving from Internet access via a single modem to an ISDN line for company-wide use, or upgrading to a client/server network from a peer-to-peer network. Keep in mind that you may encounter these upgrade needs as you scale up your network and operational systems to keep pace with Internet-enabled growth.

Empower solution providers---Value-added resellers (VARs), value-added providers (VAPs), service providers (SPs), system integrators (SIs), and consultants are the primary sales and support channels for customers in the growing business markets. These solution providers offer the necessary support, tools, and training to help growing businesses use the Internet to their own advantage. They offer a range of products and services designed from the outset to meet the needs of growing businesses. Find a solutions provider who understands the needs of your business and who will be able to meet your needs today and into the future.


Purchase integrated solutions---Seek vendors that offer complete solutions, including Internet business solutions, installation and integration services, and infrastructure and Internet access solutions through a single point of support. Look for vendors who focus specifically on meeting the needs of growing companies.

Take the next step---Internet business solutions enable growing businesses to transform the way they do business with customers, partners, suppliers, and employees, by positioning them for quantum leaps in productivity, greater growth, and profitability. The benefits of using the Internet are compelling, and the application solutions that enable it are readily available and feasible for today's growing businesses. Take the next step now and learn how your company can quickly achieve huge increases in productivity while lowering the cost of doing business by adopting Internet business solutions.

"The barriers to growth in any industry will be lower for those who effectively employ networking technology to maximize productivity, reduce time to market, increase revenue, lower costs, and strengthen business relationships."

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