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How Will E-Hubs Transform Your Business?
INTERNET EXCHANGES BRING buyers and sellers together, enabling companies to reduce costs and share knowledge. But will competitors be able to cooperate effectively?
In recent months, it has become clear that much of the payoff of electronic commerce will come not from online retailing, but from business-to-business trade. And as that reality has hit home, a great deal of discussion, prediction, and concern has centered on the rapidly emerging Internet exchanges that make it easy for companies to buy and sell online. The basic exchange formula is compelling: Bring many buyers and sellers together, and use the tools of e-commerce to let them trade in a nearly frictionless manner. The goal: Reduce the costs of goods and transactions, put new trading partners in touch with one another, and, many observers say, draw on the resulting collective knowledge to continuously hone processes and practices for all participants. Not surprisingly, exchanges are proliferating, and they can now be found in industries ranging from auto manufacturing to steel and chemicals. By 2005, we will see more than $6 trillion in online B2B trade, up from $336 billion today, according to Jupiter Communications. More than one-third of that commerce will be conducted through marketplaces that li...See the full content of this document
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