At first, radio was seen as just wireless telegraphy, the electric motor as a substitute for the water wheel, and the PC as nothing more than a small mainframe. The same is true for the Internet. The first generation of business Internet applications centered on the online brochure. While all of these have value, in retrospect, they'll be seen as nothing more than peripheral phenomena. The real payoff of the Internet is in its enabling of business collaboration.
Collaboration occurs when companies work together for mutual benefit.
It means that companies leverage each other on an operational basis so that together they perform better than they did separately. The first wave of Internet collaboration was in the supply chain, as companies worked with customers, suppliers, and intermediaries to manage inventories. By simplifying transactions and sharing information, companies drove down costs, cut cycle times, and reduced inventories. The cutting edge of supply-chain collaboration is moving upstream from there. Intermediaries and suppliers are now doing collaborative planning and forecasting, creating a shared vision of what customers will eventually buy, so that the right product can be in the right place at the right time.