The next time someone tells you, "Nobody’s making any money on the Web
yet," try talking about companies like Cisco Systems, Dell, and Marshall Industries,
suggested Jack Shaw, president of Electronic Commerce Strategies, during a keynote speech
at eCongress ‘98 in Boston.
In 1997 alone, Cisco Connection Online earned $1 billion in sales for Cisco, also
saving the networking company $250 million in customer expenses, according to the industry
expert.
Cisco’s e-comm site also integrates one of the first Web-based configuration
agents, Shaw pointed out.
Meanwhile, Marshall Industries has set about revolutionizing sales of parts through
deployment of extranets to electrical engineers.
Beyond allowing engineers to select, order, and track 170,000 different parts,
Marshall’s site (at http://www.marshall.com) behaves as an online community,
offering everything from engineering news to seminars over the net.
In 1992, Marshall’s 1650 employees generated $575 million in sales. Four years
later, staffing was down to 1420 people, but sales had soared to $1.2 billion.
If your customers start to demand e-commerce, and you’re not there yet, then
you’ve already waited too long, according to Shaw.
As a matter of fact, customers are unlikely even to demand e-comm, he added. A company
will simply lose customers to competitors who thought ahead, and have already established
e-comm sites.
Caterpillar, a major player in farm equipment, is now conducting a project aimed at
cutting product development time from four to five months down to four to five days
through Web-based teamwork, the speaker observed.
"How would you like to be a competitor to Caterpillar, (if) your product
development (cycle) is still four to five months?" he asked.
Shaw noted that the venerable magazine The Economist has dubbed the Web the most
important new technology of the past 500 years, and second only to the wheel and the
printing press in the history of humanity.
With "apologies to David Letterman," Shaw presented a list of "the top
ten reasons NOT to do e-commerce." Number one on the list? "How do we cost
justify it?"
The keynoter recalled that Intel chief Andy Grove was asked a similar question at an
Intel shareholders’ meeting. Specifically, the Intel shareholder inquired about the
ROI (return on investment) from the company’s Web site.
"This is Columbus in the New World. What was his ROI?" Grove replied to the
abashed shareholder.
(Contact: Bill Doherty, eCongress, 781-663-6619)
