Digital Discourse / Archives for web 2.0

2010: B2B eCommerce (Finally) Realizes Its Potential

May 3, 2010 By

Written by Godard Abel, Co-Founder and CEO, BigMachines
Submitted by BigMachines

Over the past decade, B2C eCommerce has changed the landscape for selling products as leaders like Amazon.com have brought eCommerce to the mainstream — and the numbers are growing. A 2009 survey of online consumer behavior conducted by Harris Interactive found that 48% of US online adults say that they are now conducting more online transactions than they did in the past. In the UK, the number is even higher as 53% of online adults say they are making more purchases online, with the ability to compare products and prices cited by 74% of these as the main reason.

Businesses still rely primarily on inefficient direct and channel sales strategies supported by legacy selling tools and cumbersome enterprise software tools rather than providing their business customers the same intuitive online experience available to consumers.  We expect that over the next decade businesses will bridge this gap and deliver increasingly intuitive eCommerce tools to their business customers.

B2B eCommerce, by definition, is not a new concept in the business world. Back in 2000, sources like Gartner Research and Forrester Research were predicting explosive growth numbers in the B2B eCommerce world, upwards of $3.95 trillion by the end of 2003. But, to date, B2B eCommerce has not seen the adoption across industries that were initially predicted back in 2000. In fact, over the last decade, while many companies have expressed interest in incorporating web technology into their existing sales platforms, very few have actually implemented it. Based on experience with over 250 companies, BigMachines has found that over 90% of companies still rely on clunky spreadsheets and rigid enterprise software systems to price, quote, and sell products. And while we’ve seen great success with the B2C eCommerce world – everyone from Amazon.com to Dell have become masters in the retail world because of it – B2B eCommerce requires online systems that can support the complex products, contract, and pricing logic often needed to satisfy B2B relationships.

It’s clear that the technology industry has been talking about eCommerce for a while but the question is: Why is 2010 going to be the year that it takes off in the B2B space? The answer is simple. The need is still there, better SaaS technology is now available, and business customers are demanding it. New technology is now available that enables businesses to provide their sales people, channel partners, and B2B customers intuitive online tools that make it just as easy to buy business products and services as consumers shopping online. The B2B eCommerce platforms also support the complex product filtering, bundling, contract management, and pricing rules that businesses need to conduct online commerce. By leveraging Web2.0 technology, B2B eCommerce platforms now offer a much richer, more real-time business shopping experience.

Knowing that B2B eCommerce will start realizing its potential this year, what can you do as an organization to take advantage?

Do your research and find a platform that suits your needs. Make sure the rules engine is complex enough to handle your products and services and pricing. Understand online self-service and its importance to your customers. In essence, B2B eCommerce helps you predict what your customers may want to purchase and when you can predict correctly, you have a better chance of winning that sale.

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Filed Under: Cloud Computing, Events, Software Tagged With: , , , , ,

Enterprise 2.0 Webinar: How to accelerate your business performance with enterprise 2.0 approaches and technology

March 18, 2010 By

– Identify where the business value is for your needs and cut through the hype –

This session aims to demystify Enterprise 2.0 benefits and to focus on pragmatic strategy by providing real world experience on viable tactics for budgeting, definining your value proposition and measuring your desired results.

Fresh from their presentation at the Enterprise 2.0 conference, Oliver Marks & Sameer Patel of the Sovos Group aim to help you unlock the value of these rapidly maturing and increasingly important social constructs to meet your specific business needs. And we’ll address how they can significantly augment the value you get from your current technology investments with greater employee and partner performance.

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Social Networking surge highlights need for diligence around the basics of online security

February 8, 2010 By

Recent headlines involving RockYou.com’s lack of simple password requirements and Twitter’s password phishing scams help remind us that no matter how advanced technology gets we can never forget the basic fundamentals of security.

The RockYou.com issues brought to light two big things. First, the lack of security controls in place within RockYou.com’s own systems starting with passwords being stored in clear text. Second, the lack of requiring people to choose somewhat difficult passwords allowed people to put in extremely simple passwords like “12345”. Of course storing the passwords in clear text trumps the use of simple passwords, since anyone within RockYou.com, or in this case, someone able to break into the systems now has all of the passwords regardless of how simple or complex they are. What I pull out of this, besides the complete disregard for security controls at all is that if you allow people to make poor judgment decisions, they will.

Twitter recently sent an email to several users of the system telling them that Twitter had reset their password because of concern that it had been compromised due to a phishing scam. That was very nice of Twitter to take the proactive approach of contacting its users and letting them know, but their email looked like a phishing attack itself. The email was nice enough to even contain links sending people to password reset page. Again, allow people to make poor judgment decisions and they will. In this case it’s all legitimate, but next time it’s going to be an email sent from someone other than Twitter, and include links that look like helpful Twitter links, but will in fact be another phishing attack. Twitter is helping perpetuate its own issue….and people will click on the links.

So that brings me back to never forgetting the basic fundamentals of security. Everyone has to protect themselves. We are all very comfortable using computers and surfing the web, and with that comfort comes complacency. We all need to take the time to think about what it is we’re putting on the web, and take the extra steps to make sure we protect ourselves by using complex passwords, different passwords on different web sites, and changing our passwords frequently. No matter how advanced technology becomes, no matter how safe a site looks, or how comfortable we are with sites we go to the only thing protecting everything we put on the web is still a simple password.

David Lingenfelter is the Information Security Officer at Fiberlink. He is also a contributor to the MeVolution Blog. David can be reached at dlingenfelter@fiberlink.com.

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