To Be or not to Be

Citation

Heap, J. (2000), "To Be or not to Be", Work Study, Vol. 49 No. 6. https://doi.org/10.1108/ws.2000.07949faa.001

To Be or not to Be

To Be or not to Be

Have you noticed that B2B has become b2b? I assume that this change has some significance, but I've not yet been able to work out what it is. B2B – sorry, b2b – is, of course, the saviour of ecommerce. Those awkward consumers don't trust their credit card details to the Web. They might use the Web to look, to window-shop, and to compare but when it comes to handing over their hard-earned money, many of them prefer the security conveyed by bricks and mortar.

b2b is different. Most b2b Web sites are closed – offering access to part of a specific community. A degree of pre-knowledge exists – most of the members of such communities know each other from the old phone and talk days. The b2b site is just a new communications medium, offering alternative – but actually much the same – ways of doing business.

b2b is big business. Some of the Web exchanges are turning over large sums of money – and some of them may actually make some money doing it. There are risks. It takes quite an investment to set up an effective e-commerce, b2b Web site. It takes even more to market it effectively to potential customers. And, because of the nature of the Internet and the Web, someone else can come along a few months later and build an alternative, perhaps better, site offering the same kinds of service. Although the investment may be large, it may not equate to an old-fashioned investment in land and buildings – so the number of potential competitors is higher.

However, once the b2b site is up and running and successful, things start to change. After the first initial few months is over, the customers are locked into the service – not necessarily physically, but organisationally and emotionally. The value of a b2b site depends on the people it helps to do business – with each other. There is room in any one industry for only a small number of such exchanges.

One of the more recent trends has been for major players in an industry to form co-operative, collaborative ventures to create b2b sites of mutual benefit. The most significant was the auto-industry exchange created by the world's three largest car manufacturers. This is happening across a number of industries – and a new word has been coined: co-opetition – competitors co-operating for mutual advantage.

At first co-opetition sounds great – a win-win situation. Each of the partners contributes to the investment, and receives part of the benefit. However, there is a danger here – not for the co-operating organisations, but for us poor consumers. As the number of such b2b sites goes down, and as they are dominated by the leading industry players working together (in harmony?), it starts to look dangerously like a means of collaborating on supply and price – and if left unchecked, could come perilously close to looking like a cartel.

So a device that starts by offering information leading to efficiency could turn into a cosy club – and one in which we pay for the drinks.

Paranoid, me??

John Heap