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Inside this Issue:
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Business
News via the Value Framework™ Lenses
Management Perspective
by
Mitchell Levy, Author of the book E-Volve-or-Die.com, Creator of the
Value Framework™
Executive
Producer, VMS3.info
VMS3.info News
How
Small Sites Can Get Noticed
How can small sites build a reputation, drive
traffic and foster brand loyalty? This is not an easy task in tight economic times,
but if a company is resourceful, several tactics can lead to e-commerce success.
Improving Humans
Let's face it: Services have become
the biggest piece of the enterprise IT pie. Far more dollars are spent on consultants,
systems integrators, outsourced managed services, outsourced support and application
development than on all the packaged software that enterprises buy.
The
CRM Mistakes Small Businesses Make
Never before have small and mid-size
businesses had such a range of CRM vendors -- no, make that suitors -- to choose
among. Although CRM spending in the enterprise market is expected to remain flat
in the near and mid-term, the SMB market is expected to grow by as much as 20
percent once the economy begins to take off...
The Offshore Value Chain
The impressive rise of offshore
software development and business process outsourcing in India and elsewhere during
the late 1990s certainly took a beating because of the economic downturn in the
U.S. and Europe that arrived shortly thereafter. But now that the bottom has settled
in and IT staffs have been pared dramatically domestically and abroad, many people
have started to wonder what will happen when spending and requirements for new
technologies reemerge.
Microsoft Eyes Hosted CRM
If both hosted and packaged CRM software
are destined to live side by side, Microsoft is determined to bolster its current
weakness in delivering the software as a service. Hot on the heels of the packaged
version of MS-CRM that went to manufacturing last month, Microsoft has detailed
plans for an ASP version of the software...
The Price Is Really Right
With a Web-savvy system, companies can
figure out just what the market will bear. It was a midsummer tradition, as enduring
as roasting wieners and spitting watermelon seeds. Just after the Fourth of July,
retailers all over the U.S., from the strip malls of Florida to the country stores
of Maine, slashed prices on bathing suits. This wasn't scientific. But who had
the smarts to figure out exactly when the demand for bathing suits would tail
off in every region of the country? And who could calculate the exact date when
the cost of carrying summer inventory outstripped the profits to be made from
it?
EBay's Secret Weapon
PayPal is the de facto market leader in the
person-to-small business payment universe, but change is in the air. Since eBay
purchased it in 2002, PayPal has become a revenue unit of the world's most successful
e-commerce venture -- eBay's secret weapon, as it were. But is this weapon double-edged?
Google's Offspring: Taking Baby
Steps
Google is expanding its search offerings into key niches, particularly
online shopping and news, with highly touted new products Google News and Froogle.
It's a great thought, but the portals need not sweat bullets anytime soon.
MODEL:
PARTICIPANTS Web Services Get Practical
The hype surrounding Web services, a technology that many once thought was destined
to revive the Internet economy, has faded. But believers say this is still a true
disruptive technology, one that will change the way enterprises interact with
customers and with each other. Innovation and Entrepreneurship
How Global Is the Internet Economy?
In recent times tome after tome has appeared
chronicling the high-stress, caffeine-charged, stock-option driven atmosphere
in Internet start-ups and the meteoric rise and fall of teenage CEOs. Books that
take a balanced view – and separate the speculative frenzy surrounding the
Internet bubble from its measured, unobvious, long-term impact on business and
society – have been few and rare. A book published last month, The Global
Internet Economy, however, fits that bill.
What Sells Best Online
Air travel, consumer electronics and apparel
are three of the hottest categories of consumer products sold online, IDC research
manager Jonathan Gaw told the E-Commerce Times. The question on the minds of many
small e-tailers may be, why are these the standouts -- and can they enter the
fray and achieve success by targeting these areas?
E-Commerce, Marketplace Activity Up
eMarketer
points to increase in transaction volumes for Internet-based e-commerce, EDI,
and marketplace adoption. A new report from research aggregator eMarketer indicates
that e-commerce adoption and business-to-business (B2B) marketplace activity are
growing steadily. MODEL:
INFLUENCES Momentum Grows for Net Sales Tax
The e-commerce sales tax issue is again coming to the fore with state officials
from Florida to New York to California publicly grumbling about all the lost tax
revenues from Internet sales.
Report: IM To Storm the Enterprise
Cheaper than long distance and
faster than e-mail, instant messaging is becoming a preferred channel within the
enterprise. A new report released by the Yankee Group confirms this trend, estimating
that there are more than 25 million business users of IM in the United States,
and the number is growing all the time.
10 years ago, who knew what his
code would do?
Almost 10 years ago, college student Marc Andreessen posted
the first Web browser. That led him to co-found Netscape Communications, which
set off the Internet boom.
Blogging Goes Corporate
Weblogs, which enable multiple users to
post text easily to a Web site, have been around for years but have gained rampant
popularity only recently. This immense interest now is carrying over to the corporate
world, where a few companies already are deploying Weblogs for internal and external
communications. Are enterprises ready for this new
technology?
T-Mobile
Cut Price of Wi-Fi
T-Mobile Hotspot, the service provided in airport
clubs and Starbucks Coffee Company shops just got cheaper. IBM tipped as web services winner
Microsoft second, Sun
and HP a poor third, says Meta. Analyst group Meta has tipped IBM as the strongest
player in the "brave new world" of web services. Why Gates Opened Windows in China
Citing cost and security
concerns, Beijing has been leaning toward open-source Linux, and Microsoft is
trying to make it lean back. Bill Gates was in Beijing last week, meeting with
President Jiang Zemin and other government officials and promising to give the
Chinese access to one of most zealously guarded industrial secrets in Corporate
America: the Windows source code. That's a big step for Microsoft (MSFT ) in any
country. In China, where piracy is rampant, it's a huge leap The
Return of the Customer
It is an article of faith that CIOs need to know
where and how the interests of the customers are represented in order for a CRM
project to be a success. But many companies become absorbed with pure tech or
internal corporate considerations -- few follow the Staples model: deploying technology
strictly to address customer pain points.
Single View of Customer Sinks on CIO Priority Lists
CIOs
continue to face extreme pressure to keep IT costs low while delivering innovative
systems solutions to business problems, according to a recent survey by Gartner.
However, achieving a single view of the customer has dropped from the third most-cited
business trend by CIOs in 2001 and 2002 to fifth for 2003.
STRATEGY: MANAGED
'Reassurance' a key word as Google grows
Google
is known and loved for its impressive Web search tool, but now the company is
beginning to face some probing questions about its plans to branch into new areas.
In its latest efforts, the Mountain View, Calif.-based company last week acquired
Web log--or "blog"--pioneer Pyra Labs and shortly afterward announced
plans to expand from selling search-related advertising links on its own site
to selling them on partner sites as well. What Makes eBay
Invincible
Two priorities dominate eBay's operational strategy: keeping
its buyer/seller community happy, and keeping its massive Web site up and running.
For Paid Search,
Feedback is Essential
Companies running paid listing campaigns must employ
return-on-investment analysis software if they hope to improve rankings and results,
experts at the Search Engine Strategies Conference & Expo said this morning.
"Make sure you do it, either on your own, or buying a service, or hiring
a specialist," Lance Loveday, president of Closed Loop Marketing, said in
his morning presentation. "Until you do that you are going on gut feeling
and it's hard to defend that." Chevron Texaco's
Soft Sell
The aggressive petroleum giant takes a laid-back approach to
implementation: Oil field professionals discover the beauties of KM technology
for themselves. Not Everything
That Can Be Counted Counts
Adam continued, "We currently provide
a myriad of web effectiveness reports to our board and I am sure that 90% of them
are not really that valuable. However, knowing which 10% to keep and what to discard
is the hurdle I face. Nailing the Right
Business Goals for Enterprise Apps
Every CIO is dogged by the same challenge
when purchasing expensive enterprise software: Make sure it delivers a substantial
return on investment. How can a project team dissect ROI into its components and
create a plan that avoids concentrating too much attention on the wrong one? The
answer is far from obvious for most enterprises.
The Red Herring calls it quits
(for now)
Red Herring ceases publication, as original founders plan comeback.
Friday was a very sad day. After ten terrific years of publishing, Red Herring
called it quits. Ironically, I has just emailed in my editorial (see my column)
for what was going to be the 10th anniversary issue of the magazine, when I received
a call from Red Herring's executive editor, Duff McDonald. "You are obviously
not in the loop," he said. "We are shutting the place down today."
The next call I got was from Red Herring CEO, Chris Dobbrow who confirmed what
I had just heard. Emerging Technology: Getting Ready for Web Services
Winterthur
Insurance's Internet-era experiments produce a low-cost application platform. Gates:
Mobility will be Fastest Growing MS Business
Microsoft has committed to
extending mobile capabilities to nearly every aspect of its business; Chairman
and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates told a full house at his keynote Wednesday
at its Microsoft Mobility Developer Conference 2003. E-Commerce: The New Lords of E-Biz
Corporate E-Business
Team with their own I.T. budgets have all but evaporated, but the CIO's responsibility
for developing online sales and supplier channels is still evolving. What you
do now to define yourself as an e-business tactician, strategist and gatekeeper
will determine your role as a decision-maker for future e-commerce investments.
About
the Author: Mitchell
Levy, is President and CEO of ECnow.com (http://ecnow.com),
an e-commerce management consulting company helping corporations transition from
the industrial age to the Internet age through strategy, marketing, and off-the-shelf
and customized on-line and on-ground training. He is the author of the book E-Volve-or-Die.com
(http://e-volve-or-die.com), creator of
the Value Framework™
(http://ecnow.com/value/),
Executive Producer of VMS3.info (http://VMS3.info),
the Founder and Program Consultant of the premier San Jose State E-Commerce Management
Certificate Program (http://ecmtraining.com/sjsu),
former Chair of comdex.biz at Comdex Fall, and Chairman of the Pay-per-Performance
PR Agency Media Attention Now TM (http://ecnow.com/mediaattention),
and the CEO Networking organization CEOnetworking (http://ceonetworking.com).
Mitchell was at Sun Microsystems for 9 years, the last 4 of which he managed the
e-commerce component of Sun's $3.5 billion supply chain. Mitchell is a popular
speaker, lecturing on ECM issues throughout the U.S. and around the world.
Read more about Mr. Levy: http://ecnow.com/ml_bio.htm
Public speaking appearances I've given: http://ecnow.com/speaking.htm
Read about ECnow.com's media coverage: http://ecnow.com/media
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