For IBM, prioritizing which areas to focus on was key to its success online.
In a keynote address at the net.marketing conference here yesterday, IBM Corp.’s enterprise Web management general manager Dick Anderson said IBM focused its initial online efforts on seven key areas: e-commerce, procurement, customer care, business partner support, employee communications, dealings with the media and analysts and marketing communications.
“What is exciting is how quickly the Internet lets you make an impact,” said Anderson.
In January 1998, IBM’s e-commerce revenue was about $35 million a month–low considering the company’s annual revenue exceeds $80 billion, he noted. To remedy that, IBM created extranets with some of its largest customers, allowing them to purchase online. This and similar projects boosted the e-commerce revenues over the $1 billion mark for last December.
Anderson also noted that by shifting much of its own purchasing of supplies online ($12 billion in December alone), it saved $240 million by reducing the number of paper invoices it processed from five million to zero.
Handling more customer service inquiries online also saved IBM approximately $300 million in call center costs last year. IBM supported around 14 million self-service transactions online last year, and expects to double that number in 1999.
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