In the first year or so of Web business, most of
the action has revolved around efforts to tap the
consumer market. More recently, as the Web proved
to be more than a fashion, companies have started to
buy and sell products and services with one another.
Such business-to-business sales make sense because
business people typically know what product
they’re looking for.
Nonetheless, many companies still hesitate to
use the Web because of doubts about its reliability.
“Businesses need to feel they can trust the pathway
between them and the supplier,” says senior analyst
Blane Erwin of Forrester Research. Some
companies are limiting the risk by conducting online
transactions only with established business partners
who are given access to the company’s private
intranet.
Another major shift in the model for Internet
commerce concerns the technology available for
marketing. Until recently, Internet marketing
activities have focused on strategies to “pull”
customers into sites. In the past year, however,
software companies have developed tools that allow
companies to “push” information directly out to
consumers, transmitting marketing messages
directly to targeted customers. Most notably, the
Pointcast Network uses a screen saver to deliver a
continually updated stream of news and
advertisements to subscribers’ computer monitors.
Subscribers can customize the information they
want to receive and proceed directly to a company’s
Web site. Companies such as Virtual Vineyards are
already starting to use similar technologies to push
messages to customers about special sales, product
offerings, or other events. But push technology has
earned the contempt of many Web users. Online
culture thinks highly of the notion that the
information flowing onto the screen comes there by
specific request. Once commercial promotion
begins to fill the screen uninvited, the distinction
between the Web and television fades. That’s a
prospect that horrifies Net purists.
But it is hardly inevitable that companies on the
Web will need to resort to push strategies to make
money. The examples of Vineyards, Amazon. com,
and other pioneers show that a Web site selling the
right kind of products with the right mix of
interactivity, hospitality, and security will attract
online customers. And the cost of computing power
continues to free fall, which is a good sign for any
enterprise setting up shop in silicon. People looking
back 5 or 10 years from now may well wonder why
so few companies took the online plunge.
Taken from: http://www.hrexam.com/words2.htm
The author’s intention is to show
