It's true. You can have one of the finest, most comprehensive and easiest-to-use sites on the Web, and it still won't help you pump your profitability if it doesn't fit the rest of your system. Consider the case of one of the Web pioneers, the very savvy firm of W. W. Grainger.
Grainger is the world's largest distributor of maintenance, repair, and operating (MRO) supplies. They have got five hundred or so branches scattered around North America. Their catalog is a fixture in just about every industrial facility there is. And, they were early to the Web.
Grainger hit the Web in 1995 with what was then one of the best design sites around. Their site is still good. The site offers a complete array of Grainger products, far more that are offered even in that fat, seven to eight pound catalog. The site's well indexed, and folks can find things easily. Ordering can be handled well, too. You would think it would be enough to drive success. But it wasn't in the beginning.
When the site had been up for a couple of years, it became apparent that only a small number of the orders for Grainger's top corporate customers were being placed through the Web site. Grainger is very closed-mouth about this, but several internal and industry sources put the percentage of orders and revenue from those companies at below 5% -- hardly enough to pay off the investment in a sophisticated site. What was the problem? It turned out that the problem had nothing to do with the quality of site or even the sophistication of Grainger's customers. The companies Grainger dealt with were online. The problem was that the people who actually ordered from Grainger weren't.
The Grainger catalog is sometimes something you find in an office, but more often it's out on the shop floor. Grainger catalogs usually have grease on them. You find them in lockers, the bottom left-hand drawer of desks in the maintenance shop, and jammed up on the workbench in the tool crib. The folks who use them, mostly maintenance and production folks, just simply didn't have access to the Web.
What it took for Grainger to reach down to this area was to get more of those folks on the Web. Some of this would happen naturally, some with special promotions, some by the way blanket purchase orders were negotiated.
Making It Work
Whatever kind of e-business initiative you're thinking about, make sure it fits the way your customers and your partners work. If it isn't easy for them to do, they won't do it.
Created/Revised/Reviewed: 30 July 2002
This is only one Big Idea. You'll find more in Wally's book, What's the Big Idea? and in his Big Idea column. There's a complete list on the Main Big Idea page. You may also order the book by clicking here.
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