Home / Bookshelf / Strategy

Title:

Electronic Commerce - Strategies and models for business to business trading

Review:

Paul Timmer's book published last October analyses strategic marketing approaches on the basis of both marketing theory and international case studies. Its systematic study of Internet commerce models should allow any company to better organise their business and understand where their sources of revenue come from. It offers an assessment of a rapidly growing area, covering current models and showing how they have fared in practice. The book also provides an analytical assessment of the marketplace for business-to-business electronic commerce strategies and includes recommendations for the implementation of a marketing strategy for business-to-business e-commerce.

The area of e-commerce projected to generate the most enormous revenues, despite all the press hype about the business to consumer market (Amazon, Lastminute.com and so on), is the business to business market. It is an incredibly fast-moving area where a new idea can transform the whole structure of the "real world" business. There are eight case studies in this volume, of which an impressive four are European companies: a fact which should not surprise us as Mr Timmers is head of sector in the European Commission, Directorate-General XIII, in the Information Technologies Directorate. He is thus directly involved in shaping the future of European e-commerce policy. While the US/global case studies (such as FedEx) are fairly well known and have been cited before, it is good to see less well known examples such as Infomar, a trading and auction system in the fishing trade. This is an example of where the real-world industry can be transformed by the implementation of such systems: real-time trading in the product can actually mean in theory that the feedback the fishermen receive could result in an end to overfishing - they would not catch more than they knew they could sell.

Infomar is also an example of involvement in e-commerce development by the European Commission - it was originally a pilot project in the ESPRIT program run by Mr Timmers. This does of course mean there is a great depth of information in the case study; other companies however are equally well represented, with if anything less emphasis on the more well known examples.

Another effect of the author's day job I presume is the interest in the effect of e-commerce on competition and barriers to entry, some useful thoughts on cross-European standards to facilitate trading, and a comparative look at the state of regulation in the EU and the USA.

One of the most helpful features of this book is the flexible approach to forecasting the future of B2B e-commerce: Mr Timmers is well aware of the fast-changing nature of the industry and the difficulties in relying on market research: he therefore analyses models and highlights trends rather than making overly specific predictions. This enables the reader to better understand the likely impact of new developments as they occur. Sections I would particularly recommend are those on disintermediation and on the convergence of B2B and B2C markets.

Mr Timmers' hot tip? One to one marketing has not reached it's full potential. My hot tip? If you can't plough through the whole book, the last two pages are a useful summary - and don't miss out on the case studies.

Free Pint Reviewer:

Margaret Morrison is a Knowledge Specialist in the area of Electronics and High-Tech for Andersen Consulting. She provides secondary research in this area, more and more of which now focuses on e-commerce. She is also so keen on e-commerce she even runs her own e-business in her spare time - selling American candy at <http://www.cybercandy.co.uk>.

Related Free Pint Links:

• Related Internet strategy book reviews on the Free Pint Bookshelf

Purchase options:

• £19.96 amazon.co.uk
• $55 amazon.com

Further reading:

Other reviews of Internet strategy books on the Free Pint bookshelf.