Triangle Business Journal

David Chapman

E-business experts have differing skills

Back in the late 1980’s, national and global advertising agencies went on a spending spree, frantically gobbling up direct marketing companies, public relations firms, sales promotion agencies, along with any other specialty companies in order to serve up “integrated” marketing communications solutions to corporate America.

While the strategy generated incremental income for agencies, their client counterparts learned the hard way that no single firm could deliver “best of breed” solutions across the entire marketing spectrum. Corporate decision makers became the integrator, contracting with the best ad agency, the best direct marketing firm, etc.

As Yogi Berra prophetically said, “it’s deja vu all over again.”

Many high profile, well financed — with IPO and venture capital money burning a hole in their pocket — e-commerce solutions providers are rapidly purchasing complementary companies in order to offer “end-to-end” e-business capabilities.

Before leaping at the first company offering “e-bliss”, companies should evaluate potential e-business suppliers based on their ability to deliver on the following:

• A strategic road map for taking your current business model to the Internet.
• Integration skills necessary to link your legacy or back end IT systems with the Internet.
• Stimulate brand awareness, drive traffic to your site, again and again.
• When it’s all said and done, e-business solution providers fall into on or four core competencies; strategists, integrators, Web boutiques or influencers.

STRATEGISTS

As the name implies, they specialize in strategic advice and counsel. They assist companies in determining their most viable e-business value proposition with key stakeholders, discover the gap between current and required resources and identify the resources required to fully capitalize on the e-business initiative. However, they lack the technical knowledge to create Internet applications. You should consider engaging them early in the process, as you investigate how to get into e-commerce.

INTEGRATORS

Typically systems integrators or IT consultants, they enable the integrations of the companies’ existing legacy or back-end systems to the Web. Clearly, they handle the most challenging aspect of e-commerce projects. However, they lack business strategy and Web design skills. These firms are useful for defining a project’s business case and for tackling complex integrations into operational systems.

WEB BOUTIQUES

Web boutiques focus on crating new Web applications from scratch. They created the first generation “brochure-ware” websites in existence today. Boutiques are best suited to business-to-consumer projects that require limited integration to operational systems.

INFLUENCERS

These companies have a foundation in traditional consumer advertising, and include ad agencies and media companies. Their strength lies in their interactive marketing, branding, portal links and consumer interaction tactics for business to consumer business models.

Bottom line: Fine-tune your e-business vision goals – then select the best combination of suppliers that can get you there with speed and results.

Chapman is president of 919 Marketing, a Triangle- based marketing and public relations consulting firm. He can be reached at (919) 557-7890.