Michael PorterÆs article, ôStrategy and the Internet,ö makes some excellent points. I agree with him that the Internet does not necessarily provide an automatic advantage for most companies. The Internet enables consumers to look more places faster for a lower price, so unless a company can offer the best price anywhere in the world, it must distinguish itself from its competition with strategy. The continued and sustained e-commerce trading environment needs to tap the advantages of the Internet, such as open architecture, easy access, and powerful searches, and use them as complements to an overall strategy, not as the whole strategy.
Companies need to determine how the Internet can best be used to provide competitive advantage for their particular business, not copy other e-tailers. An excellent example is QVC, whose strategy includes an Internet website, some specialty catalogs, and a community of hosts that have become familiar with certain categories of products, all employed in conjunction with its QVC home-shopping channel. It is not necessarily the individual aspects of its strategy that make QVC so successful, but the synergy between them. This synergy is what e-tailers need to strive forùe-commerce solutions in which every component brings value added in its own right as well as contributing to the synergy that makes the whole work more effectively. The paramount question for a company engaged in e-commerce is not ôWhat Internet-based functions can I add to my business?ö but ôHow can the Internet be used to optimum advantage as part of my overall strategy?ö
The combination of wireless technology and GPS opens up a new vista for innovative e-commerce applications. A consumer with a cell phone, wireless laptop, or Blackberry can place an order from anywhere and have it delivered anywhere. This not only eliminates the usual purchase restrictions of time and placeù...