E-Business
In The E-Boardroom
Supply-chain management technology has allowed companies to procure products electronically via electronic product catalogues on the Internet, but a problem has arisen. Electronic procurement solutions have tended to ignore important parts of the procurement process, such as order forecasting, order fulfilment details, and direct electronic payment.
A new category of collaborative filtering software, dubbed CPFR (collaborative planning, forecasting, and replenishment), is emerging and is expected to be incorporated as a software layer into many supply-chain products and exchanges. CPFR layers are rule-based software routines that can generate forecasts of product needs based on historical purchasing patterns. Skyva International's Collaborative Commerce Platform is one of the first standalone technologies in this category.
In the CRM world, companies such as Siebel Systems have made great strides in tracking every point of customer contact, but new visitor relationship management (VRM, not to be confused with voltage regulator modules, among other things) technologies aim to analyse every point of visitor/site contact. Recent data from Forrester Research shows that about half of first-time site visitors abandon commerce sites because they are too difficult to navigate.
One of the early VRM technologies is CommerceTrends 3.0, from WebTrends, which produces intricate clickstream analysis and visitor behaviour reports that site managers can use to analyse and track which sites visitors respond to, or at least spend time reading. A new VRM-related technology from a company called eHelp lets site managers build pop-up help into every part of their sites. eHelp also provides heuristic predictive technology that observes visitor behaviour. The technology offers suggestions that may prevent visitors from abandoning a site. BroadVision, Kana Communications, and other CRM providers are also building VRM solutions to extend the CRM and personalisation concepts.
The landscape of e-business is undulating furiously as new B2B and B2C technologies promise to extend the reach and efficiency of Web commerce. In the end, one observation rings truest of all: e-business sits squarely in its infancy.
THINKERS
"We believe that visitor relation management (VRM) presents one of the biggest opportunities on the Web today. Numerous studies have concluded that approximately 95 percent of Web site visitors never become customers. If a business can improve that number by 5 to 10 percent and cultivate a long-term relationship with its customer base, the effects can be profound. For example, by linking visitor-analysis information with demographic information from a CRM system, an e-commerce site preparing for Mother's Day could determine that most men in South Australia purchase flowers, while men in New South Wales typically purchase Swiss chocolate, and target these areas accordingly. The opportunity for the business isn't only increased sales for that week; they're also leaving a lasting impression with the visitor for repeat business.
- Coleen Carey, director of product marketing, WebTrends.
