Firms are getting more output from their workers while keeping costs in line, allowing them to hold off on passing higher costs on to consumers in the form of price increases. Primer Connecting your company to global information and product markets through Web-based eBusiness tools is a step to understanding the changing role you and your business will play in the Net economy. By using eBusiness tools like collaborative project extranets, you will be able to see firsthand the efficiencies created by giving project team members in every part of the information supply chain access to key information from anywhere, at anytime, making well-informed, multiparty decisions more quickly, communicating to the rest of the team in real time, and automatically archiving all activity into a permanent, digital project record. This is a fundamental change from the traditional business model of having to buy, install, and maintain software on your own computers. Your company can now try a number of providers in this ASP approach without having to invest in software or commit to standardizing at this point in the market development.
Time is the downside of trying several providers.
There are no standards yet, so each system has its own workflow, business rules, and organization, and it will take time for your staff to learn how to use each system and comparatively evaluate them. Also, many of the dot com's were start-ups funded by venture capitalists hoping to take them public within short periods of time. You don't want to be working with one of those companies when their time runs out. Looking at the stability of the organization behind the Web site may be more important than looking at the functionality when deciding which provider to try. Once these questions are answered, you can make an informed decision.