E-business means many things to many people. Ariba and CommerceOne are examples of one flavor of e-business. However, not every company's e-business initiative has to integrate with its (or its customers') enterprise resource planning (ERP) system.
CRM is admittedly a marketing initiative: maximize the value of each customer by offering relevant products to them. Why not make e-business a marketing initiative, too?
In the last 18 months, scarcity economics has been turned on its head. Remember Adam Smith and the invisible hand? Market laws still apply. However, if there's scarcity in today's marketplace, it's scarcity of demand. Goods and services exist in abundance. The problem businesses face is attracting enough demand for goods and services. "If you build it they will come" worked for Marshall Field in Chicago in 1871, when he rebuilt after the great Chicago Fire, but every Webmaster knows that building it isn't enough anymore.
The first wave of e-business applications - mostly procurement systems - was developed to cut the costs of the company developing (or implementing) the application. The next wave of e-business applications, and we're already seeing a handful, should be about saving time for both the business and the customers of the business - whether those customers are individuals or other businesses. American Airlines, Unimast, and AT&T have realized that saving time for the customer can be a differentiating feature of their own product.
American Airlines Gets It
American Airlines has implemented kiosks permitting e-ticketed travelers to check themselves in, rather than waiting in ticket lines. Not only are these kiosks faster than waiting in line, they're far better. A swiped credit card begins the process (simply to confirm identity, not to pay for anything). The traveler is then prompted for his AAdvantage number, something that never happens in the ticket counter. He confirms whether he's simply checking himself in, or checking in his entire party (including children who, of course, have no IDs). He answers the FAA questions about bags remaining in his possession. He indicates how many checked bags he has. He then confirms that the seats that have been selected for him are fine, or selects new seats from a seating chart of the plane, with empty seats indicated. Finally, he prints boarding passes and, optionally, receipts.
A single American Airlines employee stands behind the counter calling the names of passengers moments after they've indicated they are checking bags, waiting with the baggage tags printed, to accept the bags at the desk. At Chicago's O'Hare Airport, on a Sunday afternoon, this single employee was easily managing all 12 busy kiosks.
Unimast Provides E-Business Solution to Building Contractors
Unimast is in the drywall business. Of course, you can't expect anyone to order drywall online, can you? Unimast realized that the decision of which building materials to purchase is not made at a lumberyard or at a gypsum supply yard, but in the contractor's office. The contractor builds based on an architect's specification and many hours are spent researching appropriate materials that he can demonstrate comply with the specs.
Unimast became the contractor's best friend when it moved all its materials online, even letting contractors create their own "submittals" that could easily be printed, e-mailed, or faxed directly from the site to the architect for approval. The submittal, once approved by the architect, becomes the shopping list for construction materials.
Unimast's Submittal Wizard is a huge time saver for the contractor, and guarantees that submittals created on the site will use exclusively Unimast products. E-business at its finest!
AT&T Rings Up Customer Loyalty
AT&T offers an e-business solutions suite to its business customers. If a customer has a problem with a line, rather than dial-up customer service and give the rep what little information he has, the customer can go directly to the AT&T online trouble shooting system. He can enter the circuit number, and request a test of the circuit, with no human intervention involved on either side. The system will help him diagnose whether the problem is within his own walls, within the system of the local carrier, or actually an AT&T problem. If AT&T is to blame, the information is routed directly into their internal trouble resolution system. Most often, the problem is local carrier issue, and no AT&T hours are spent on the problem.
The customer doesn't have to take any additional action, or wait on hold. Of course, for AT&T, this means that most of the customer service requests they would have had to handle get resolved before a single AT&T employee hour is expended.
The Customer's Time in Common
All three of these e-business initiatives are designed to save the customer's time and build brand loyalty. In all three cases, price becomes a less important differentiator.
Who owns e-business? I suggest it belong to marketing, in addition to operations, finance, and IT, the traditional owners of e-business initiatives. Marketing should have its finger on the pulse of the customer, and know what the pain points for the customer are. When e-business lessens the pain for customers, then e-business is a loyalty-building marketing initiative.
Parting Note to Readers
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to write for you for the past two and a half years. In that time, I've written over 250 columns for the ECommerce Guide, and that wouldn't have been possible without your loyalty. This is my last week writing for Internet.com. I've been offered the position of managing editor at MarketingSherpa, and I believe in making a career change every two to three years, so you can expect to find me there for about that long. If you ever want to find me, I'm always at www.alexisgutzman.com.
Alexis D. Gutzman is an author, speaker, and consultant on e-business and
e-commerce topics. She's the producer of The Online Marketing Report. Her most recent book, The E-commerce Arsenal: 12
Technologies You Need to Prevail in the Digital Arena, was named one of the
30 best business books of this year. For up-to-date information about her research and speaking engagements, visit The Alexis Gutzman Group's Web site.
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