Business transformation on the Internet

With the aid of a collaborative research study, Soumitra Dutta and Arie Segev look at the ways commercial organizations are exploiting the Internet. They choose the classical strategic marketing model of `4Ps' to underpin the research, augmented with an additional factor -- Customer Relations. Their results show that most large corporations and multinationals are making little use of the Internet, treating it simply as a publishing medium. Traditional corporations are loath to take risks and are therefore vulnerable to flexible and fast-moving new entrants moving onto the Internet. In this respect, there is little difference between US and European or Asian firms. The authors insist that focus on the customer is the correct prescription which, however, is not easy to implement. All sectors of industry must seek to exploit the Internet for competitive advantage.