UNISC Medicina 2013/2

In the first year or so of Web business, most of

the action has revolved around efforts to tap the

consumer market. More recently, as the Web proved

to be more than a fashion, companies have started to

buy and sell products and services with one another.

Such business-to-business sales make sense because

business people typically know what product

they’re looking for.

Nonetheless, many companies still hesitate to

use the Web because of doubts about its reliability.

“Businesses need to feel they can trust the pathway

between them and the supplier,” says senior analyst

Blane Erwin of Forrester Research. Some

companies are limiting the risk by conducting online

transactions only with established business partners

who are given access to the company’s private

intranet.

Another major shift in the model for Internet

commerce concerns the technology available for

marketing. Until recently, Internet marketing

activities have focused on strategies to “pull”

customers into sites. In the past year, however,

software companies have developed tools that allow

companies to “push” information directly out to

consumers, transmitting marketing messages

directly to targeted customers. Most notably, the

Pointcast Network uses a screen saver to deliver a

continually updated stream of news and

advertisements to subscribers’ computer monitors.

Subscribers can customize the information they

want to receive and proceed directly to a company’s

Web site. Companies such as Virtual Vineyards are

already starting to use similar technologies to push

messages to customers about special sales, product

offerings, or other events. But push technology has

earned the contempt of many Web users. Online

culture thinks highly of the notion that the

information flowing onto the screen comes there by

specific request. Once commercial promotion

begins to fill the screen uninvited, the distinction

between the Web and television fades. That’s a

prospect that horrifies Net purists.

But it is hardly inevitable that companies on the

Web will need to resort to push strategies to make

money. The examples of Vineyards, Amazon. com,

and other pioneers show that a Web site selling the

right kind of products with the right mix of

interactivity, hospitality, and security will attract

online customers. And the cost of computing power

continues to free fall, which is a good sign for any

enterprise setting up shop in silicon. People looking

back 5 or 10 years from now may well wonder why

so few companies took the online plunge.

Taken from: http://www.hrexam.com/words2.htm