HP advises ecosystem approach to ebusiness

NEWS Selling on the Internet will not be the key to a company's success in the Net economy, according to Nick Earle, president of e-services division, HP. Earle told delegates at the e-services World conference in Paris that creating alternative revenue streams is more important than online shopping and optimising supply chains. He said: "Ecosystems are the future. It is nothing new. We already knew that as everything in this world has a relationship with other things, so, if one thing changes then everything changes and so you have to build an eco-world around consumers, enterprises and competitors." Earle claimed a "ready, fire, steer" approach was essential to ecommerce. "You have to announce the product and then build it. This is what Ford did with their global online procurement product and it soon got the attention of DaimlerCrysler and General Motors. But this is a very hard model for companies to understand as it is not the traditional, natural business model." Then, practising what he preaches, Earle announced HP's intention to be able to deliver a complete e-services roll out in 45 days. "Our goal is to have a company's ecommerce strategy up-and-running within this time. Right now we are at 60 days, but when you compare even that to old traditional IT cycles, it is still pretty competitive."