The clickable corporation

In business, it has always hurt to "wait and see." In the vast world of Internet commerce, it's vital to establish a strong, quality presence -- now, say Arthur Andersen Web experts Jonathan Rosenoer, Douglas Armstrong, and J. Russell Gates -- before another site starts filling your customer's needs with a click of a mouse. With the number of potential customers who are connected well on its way to 1 billion, the Internet is at once the greatest opportunity and the greatest threat to established businesses. It's not enough for a company to be on the Web; the company must be consistently more effective, more accessible, and more exciting than any other site in its category. Rosenoer, Armstrong, and Gates provide a strategic view of case studies of 25 well-known companies engaged in e-commerce. Their studies reveal how any company can capture meaningful Internet advantage for its stakeholders -- whether they are customers, shareholders, or business partners. The authors describe how the achievements of such champions as Coldwell Banker, Federal Express, Bloomberg Financial Markets, Dell Computer, Northwest Airlines, 1-800-FLOWERS, Charles Schwab & Company, and Wells Fargo, as well as Internet-based companies like GeoCities, SeniorNet, and Women.com, can be successfully put to work for any company. They isolate the eight value propositions a company must offer through its site; knowledge, choice, convenience, customization, savings, community, entertainment, and trust; and they illustrate, with multiple case studies for each, how these are achieved. This guided tour to maximizing the Internet advantage walks the reader through the steps needed to crystallize a company's missions, goals, and assets; to identify customers and their needs; and to keep ahead of competition through discerning emerging Internet business standards, online positioning, and foreseeing impending competition from new technologies. A final chapter sets forth the skills managers require to conquer the