From Evernote:

StratVantage Consulting, LLC — Mike’s Take on the News 04/11/01

Clipped from: http://www.stratvantage.com/news/041101.htm

The News – 04/11/01

Confidence in B2B Exchanges Flows

Well if you’re not confused about the B2B exchange marketplace, you’re not paying attention. The March issue of manufacturing-oriented magazine, Start, quotes Jupiter Research as saying independent-sponsored marketplaces (ISMs) are gaining speed. ISMs, which I call Captive Exchanges, are business-to-business groups created by industry leaders. Jupiter says they are moving online faster, and enabling business operations sooner than expected. “More than 41% of 58 ISMs already have the ability to conduct business online, and another 33% were speculated to have launched by the end of 2000,” the magazine said.

In the last edition of StratVantage News Summary, I reported Ariba’s gloomy prediction that all public exchanges were doomed. This was a particularly interesting statement, considering that Ariba’s stock is floundering, and statements of doom and gloom won’t do anything to enhance its price.

So I guess, when you look at it, Jupiter’s statement really says nothing about the viability of the online exchange, just that they’re really good at spending venture capital getting to market. And also good at getting industry analysts to write favorable analyses, it would appear.

In the same issue, Start quotes AMR Research regarding consortium trading exchanges (CTEs). CTEs face ten trouble spots:

· premature promises of functionality	long delays in the delivery of collaborative commerce applications
· lack of consensus about where functionality should reside	cost to integrate back-end systems
· need to budget for the total cost of the exchange	supplier recruitment, participation and integration
· competition among the best-of-breed vendors	immaturity of standards
· marketplace-to-marketplace integration	political infighting

Other than that, they face clear sailing!

These varying viewpoints underscore the importance of businesses formulating a solid business case before getting involved in B2B exchanges. Concentrating on bringing efficiency to your own supply chain is likely to be more fruitful in the short run.

Start Magazine

Gratuitous Fun

OK, this has nothing to do with business or eCommerce, or anything that I usually write about. It’s just so doggone cool.

Here’s a site where you can make your own license plate images using your favorite words or phrases. Do I need to go on?

Acme License Maker

Can’t Get Enough of ME?

In the unlikely event that you want more of my opinions, I’ve started a Weblog. It’s the fashionable thing for pundits to do, and I’m doing it too. A Weblog is a datestamped collection of somewhat random thoughts and ideas assembled on a Web page. If you’d like to subject the world to your thoughts, as I do, you can create your own Weblog. You need to have a Web site that allows you FTP access, and the free software from www.blogger.com . This allows you to right click on a Web page and append your pithy thoughts to your Weblog.

I’ve dubbed my Weblog entries “Stratlets”, and they are available at www.stratvantage.com/stratlets/ . Let me know what you think.

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