Business on the Internet

Why has the business world discovered the Internet? Over the past year or so, the number of corporate home pages has exploded. These pages present the corporate image, display products and services, provide contact information and increasingly enable on-line transactions. Many of our members are aware of this phenomenon. Some members are considering their own Internet presence, and some of you are asking for information about doing business on the Internet.

Corporations are discovering that, if they do it right, Web pages on the Internet allow them to disseminate information, communicate with their customers (to and from), provide services and complete transactions -- almost anywhere in the world. They are deciding that the Internet is the modern way for them to do a significant part of their business.

Recently I decided to expand my own home page set and create additional Web pages with links to some of these corporate pages. I started to record URLs (uniform resource locators or, more simply, Web addresses) when I came across them in magazines, newspapers and television advertisements. For me, placing these Web addresses on my own Web pages with suitable explanatory text is much more effective than using the bookmark feature in my Web browser. I am organizing my access to both corporate and other Web addresses. I am also improving my access to e-mail addresses that I regularly use by incorporating them in my pages as well. My personal Web pages have become an important tool for me in my own professional activities.

I had previously purchased two books by Jim Carroll and Rick Broadhead on the Internet -- the "Canadian Internet Handbook," and the "Canadian Internet Directory." I noticed, inside the cover, a Web page address for their books at "http://www.handbook. com". I looked at it and decided it was a pretty good marketing tool.

While reading that Web page, I realized that they had written a third book called "The Canadian Internet Advantage -- Opportunities for Business and Other Organizations." It is published by Prentice Hall Canada, ISBN 0-13-226598-2. This book provides a good overview of corporate presence and strategies for business on the Internet. I included into my set a number of the Web addresses they quoted and used their book as the basis for this column. A key feature of this book is the use of many corporate Web page examples to illustrate various aspects of an effective Internet business strategy.

CORPORATE ADDRESSES.   Very often you can guess the Web address by inserting the name or common abbreviation for the company between "http://www." and ".com". This is true in the U.S. In other countries there is often a country code or a mix of "com" or "co" and the two-digit country code. Some examples are "hyatt" and "marriott" for hotel chains, "usair" for airlines ("www. aircanada.ca" for a Canadian airline), "americanexpress" and "mastercard" for financial services (go ahead and try "visa" -- it works too).

Computer hardware examples are "acer, compaq, dell, epson, hp, ibm, intel, sun, ti, toshiba," etc. Computer software package examples are "corel, delrina, lotus, microsoft, quarterdeck" and so on.

Internet service providers tend to end with ".com" or ".net". Examples are "www.aol.com, www.att.com, www.cerf.net, www.compuserve.com, www.delphi.co.uk (in the U.K.), www.hookup.net (in Canada), www.mci.com and www.msn.com (for microsoft network), www.netcom.com, www.prodigy.com, www.psi.net, www.racsa.co.cr (in Costa Rica), www.sprint.com, and www.uunet.com".

Looking for a new car? The automobile site "www.yahoo.com/Recreation/Automobiles" by Yahoo is an example of a Web page that links you to many sites. Or try "lincol nvehicles, saturncars, toyota, volvocars," etc. Want to order a pizza, find some interesting recipes to try at home, look up what is showing at a movie theater before you travel to one of many U.S. and Canadian cities? The list of products or services to buy is really quite amazing -- considering that most of these sites did not exist a year ago.

QUALITY PAGES.   Jim Carroll and Rick Broadhead examine a large selection of sites in order to discuss the characteristics that make a high-quality Web page set. There are two limitations to always bear in mind. The screen presentation is dependent on the characteristics of the viewer's browser as well as the bandwidth of the path between the server (where the pages are stored) and the client (where the pages are viewed). Some of the newer features, background patterns and colors may not show on older browsers.

It is becoming quite common to see a simple home page that contains a choice between subsequent pages that are (a) designed to take advantage of Netscape 2 features (especially split screens -- more than one scrollable window) or (b) designed to work with simpler browsers. It is also common to see a choice provided between minimum use of graphics and a lot of graphics -- which may take forever to load if your connection (path) is of low capacity or clogged with traffic. This latter choice is much more effective than forcing the user to turn off the "display graphics" option in the browser.

15 STEPS.   The authors suggest a 15-step Internet strategy, including these issues:

1.   Get on line -- to learn what is out there and how things are being done.

2.   Determine the state of Internet planning in your organization; avoid duplication and coordinate efforts.

3.   Determine the scope of your Internet strategy. Is it your entire company or selected parts?

4.   Understand how your industry and market are responding to the Internet; look for successes and failures, relevant conferences and discussion groups. Are your customers using the Internet?

5.   Determine the extent of Internet knowledge in your organization and educate accordingly; consider the understanding of senior management and the impact of the Internet on your way of doing business.

6.   Determine your organization's Internet objectives; relate to your business goals and objectives, define the objectives you want to meet using the Internet.

7.   Be a good Internet citizen -- understand the Internet culture, the hatred of junk mail, the sharing of information, the availability of some free services, giving something back to the Internet.

8.   Define the benefits of the Internet -- cost savings, improved corporate image, improved communications, improved customer satisfaction (leading to increased sales) and new markets. Define how you will measure success.

9.   Develop an Internet vision for your company -- what it will be used for, how it relates to your business strategies, the benefits that will accrue.

10.   Determine the Internet tools you will use -- e-mail, fileserver, mailing lists, discussion groups, Usenet newsgroups, the Web.

11.   Determine how you will use these tools; compare advantages and disadvantages of each tool for each of your customer groups (accessibility of e-mail vs. flexibility of Web).

12.   Determine how to implement your Internet strategy -- hire a contractor, use (or develop) in-house expertise, purchase third-party services.

13.   Define the costs of establishing Internet services; consider both equipment and training.

14.   Add the finishing touches -- marketing, legal issues.

15.   Create your plan, establish time lines and go.

A badly designed or poorly maintained set of Web pages is just as damaging to your business as any other lapse in customer relations or poor business practices. Doing it right -- doing business on the Internet -- means understanding the Internet culture, understanding the technology and adapting how one does one's business to take advantage of the enormous potential.