Fatbrain.com Tuesday agreed to create an online bookstore for Eastman
Chemical Co.’s 15,000 employees.
FinditNow® is tailored for Eastman, a manufacturing and marketing
leader of plastics, chemicals and fibers, and will be the primary online
book vendor on that company’s intranet. The bookstore provides access to a
comprehensive catalog of pertinent professional information, including books
and other materials on topics ranging from chemical engineering to physics.
Eastman should also benefit from Fatbrain.com’s search functionality and
customized online billing and message boxes, which allow employees to
purchase professional materials using internal project codes.
Such a system allows Eastman, whose 1999 sales totaled nearly $4.6 billion,
to have a handle on purchasing procedures as it integrates the new online
bookstore service with the company’s existing business processes.
“Our relationship with Fatbrain.com enables us to provide Eastman employees
access to a comprehensive selection of professional resources through our
corporate intranet,” Michael W. Ubaldini, supervisor of Technical & Business
Information Services at Eastman, said. “We are giving employees easy
reference to books and training materials that will contribute to job
success and satisfaction.”
Before Barnes & Noble.com absorbed FatBrain.com in September for $61.7
million in stock, the Web publishing management firm
implemented one or more co-branded online bookstores or information resource
centers for the likes of Nortel Networks, Ford Motor Co. and IBM Corp.