More than money
With top management eyeing expenses more carefully, much of that e-business-related spending no doubt is intended to streamline supply chains and cut costs. "This is the time of good old standard financial analysis techniques," said David Scott Lewis, an analyst with Meta Group. "The CFO [chief financial officer] is a lot more involved, and if he can't see it, it won't happen."
>But a focus on ROI can be taken too far, warned Carol Rozwell, an analyst at Gartner Group. Now is not the time to just squeeze every dollar out of a Web effort, Rozwell said. "The recession, if there is one, will end eventually, and it's the companies who position themselves well during it who will come out of it on top," she said. "Just focusing on cutting costs is the wrong direction to go right now."
Eastman's Buehler agrees. "This is the year of execution, not of saving money," he said. "Our whole industry [chemicals] has been focused on cost savings for years and years. There's nothing strategic about it, and it's not what differentiates you with customers. And that's what we're about this year: increasing customer satisfaction."
Eastman is increasing spending on e-business initiatives by 10 percent this year. Most of it's intended to make customers happier. One example: The company's Web storefront just launched 10 new wizardsââ,¬"Web-based applications that help visitors make correct buying decisions. Customers can enter details of a project and find out how much of which chemicals to buy.
Creating these interactive, intelligent purchasing tools took months of programming, but Buehler said he's certain it's worth it. "We want to have the best Web store anywhere, and these kinds of things help us get there," he said.
So far, Eastman's Web store generates about $300 million in sales annually.
