From POS to price changes
Also spending more this year to use the Web to integrate suppliers and customers more tightly into his company's core back-end systems is Bud Mathaisel, CIO at electronics manufacturer Solectron. Mathaisel has seen his IT budget double this year to support those e-business initiatives. And, as a result, he's seen top management's expectations rise. "The board is leaning heavily on us to go even faster, " Mathaisel said.
For starters, Solectron will continue to invest in foundation systems like ERP by integrating them with Web-based electronic ordering systems. Another effort involves working with partners to codify the information flow, making sure suppliers know what and where everything is. Like Eastman, Solectron is investing in B2B middleware that will allow customers to tap into Solectron's back-end systems to track everything from a purchase order to a price change.
Solectron is also counting on B2B e-marketplaces to facilitate information flow with its suppliers and customers. The company is pouring major investments into working with two large vertical-industry exchangesââ,¬"contract manufacturing exchange Converge and electronics industry exchange e2Open.com. Among other things, Mathaisel is working to help those e-marketplaces produce standards, such as the Extensible Market Language variant RosettaNet, to allow everyone to do business more easily.
But looking at spending isn't the only way to gauge a company's ongoing commitment to e-business. Besides increasing their budgets, enterprises are restructuring organisations and processes to support e-business today and tomorrow. Mathaisel, for example, has turned to a portfolio approach to manage the rapidly expanding list of e-business initiatives under his watch. In addition, Eastman recently integrated e-business responsibility directly into each of its core business units. That way, Buehler said, e-business will continue to be considered a mainstream part of the enterprise.
