A Challenge for Pure-Play Internet Companies

Internet pure-play competitors face a major challenge from more traditional
companies that implement multi-channel e-business (MCEB) strategies, says a
new report.

Killen & Associates said that 75 percent of
“global 2000” companies will be employing MCEB strategies by the year 2005.

This represents a dramatic shift in the way e-business will be pioneered and
applied in multiple industries, said the study, entitled “Multi-channel
e-Business: Competitive Advantage for 21st-Century Global Enterprises.”

“Companies that deploy MCEB can achieve discontinuous increases in revenue —
even doubling or tripling sales in affected channels,” said Michael Killen,
chairman and founder of the market research firm.

“In addition, MCEB
enterprises can also expect to reduce sales, distribution, and service costs
by up to 30 percent, due to improvements in
everything from call center workloads and marketing collateral production to
inventory management and order processing.”

The shift to multi-channel e-business represents an evolution in electronic
commerce, the study says. For the past two years, the business media has
focused on the meteoric rise of the “dot-coms,” Internet-only companies that,
in theory, operate as virtual entities with few or no intermediaries.

The answer for the more traditional competition is MCEB, says the study,
which allows established corporations to transform their existing structures
and processes into competitive, scaleable, customer-focused Web businesses,
linking disparate customer touch-points and back-office systems through
Web-based services and applications.