Comments on: What future for e-Marketplaces?

By: Andrew Zino

Andrew Zino — Fri, 25 May 2007 00:39:26 +0000

Hi Jean Philippe,
After several projects in Accenture, I moved back to Madeira where I joined the Blandy Group http://www.blandy.com and did several projects including setting up and opening the Madeira Story Centre http://www.storycentre.com initiated a selection of a new back-office platform and web sales tool for the travel agency and directed their Nature Tourism company where I increased sales substantially in less than a one year cycle.
I am now working alone, identifying business opportunities including: alternative energy production (wind and photovoltaic) for the grid, tourism promotion and selling and lastly the possibility of creating a marketplace where local farmers can sell their products to local hotels and restaurants, as well as supermarkets and even end consumers. I am developing business models for the three opportunities, although the last two are more supply/demand related, especially the last one.
I am looking for case studies on how farmers (or other associations) joined together to distribute products as well as a clear added benefit to buyers for using a marketplace (price, information, more products other than farm products, etc), as well as other revenue sources for the marketplace, such as sourcing management for hotels/consumers and also possibility of producers also become buyers of products they need (chemicals, farm tools, etc). It is interesting that you confirmed that eutilia shareholders all continue to use eSourcing & eProcurement and reason for lack of success was critical mass, use of national databases and communication issues rather than an issue with sharing information with competitors. As this project will be initially targeted at a regional producer/consumer base, I hope that these issues will not be relevant (I expect there to be others!).
I am also looking for applications for the marketplace (either existing and use ASP or install new application). Application must be user friendly, especially if farmers are expected to updated product availability as well as potentially be able to integrate with buyer ERPs (SAP, and other simpler systems).

By: jp.massin

jp.massin — Wed, 23 May 2007 12:39:55 +0000

Hi Andrew! How are you? Where are you and what are you doing? (Andrew worked for Eutilia at the very start, as an Accenture consultant).

To respond – myself – briefly to your questions:
1. It can be supplier or buyer led, if suppliers or buyers are REALLY supporting the initiative andusing the marketplace. So there’s not a preferred model there.
2. Eutilia failed because of a lack of involvement of its founders (only 50% used the platform) who didn’t see the point of sharing a platform and their supplier database (which was quite national at that stage).
3. The model that did run Eutilia proved to be efficient: All former founders are using eSourcing and eProcurement but on a private marketplace structure (no sharing).

Looking at my Shareholders, I always thought I had in front of me a ’simplified model of Europe’ with 8 nationalities represented, not understanding this same thing behind an identical english sentence and having different priority on their agenda, but none being to share something with a potential competitor.

Nevertheless, what an experience!

By: Andrew Zino

Andrew Zino — Wed, 23 May 2007 00:38:37 +0000

In summary, what do readers beleive are the success of marketplaces?
- Does it need to be buyer led (i.e. Ford have a sistem which list all suppliers, who pay to be listed and have no guarantee that their products will be purchased)
- Does it need to be supplier led (we will only supply through this platform)
- Does it have to be full of buyer benefits (not only cost, but delivery/distribution, specific information, etc)
- how altruistic are partners (did eutilia not suceed because it tried to bring together companies that have been competing for a long time and sourcing/buying is such a profit “sucess secret” that partners/competitors did not want to share this knowledge OR did individual companies have very specific buying needs, even though there were in the same industry?)
- can the online purchase cycle realy be improved (reduce cost for both supplier and buyer) … with what ROI?

By: Frank Bennett

Frank Bennett — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 11:22:30 +0000

Well done on some grounded analysis of ‘what is’ rather than ‘what we want to believe is’.

I recommend to others the link provided and take a look at the Forrester presentation.

B2B supplier networks. We are waiting for that to happen and to my mind that is going to need a shift in thinking from:

Buyer: we need to connect so we can collaborate online here is what I need you to do ….

Buyer: when we connect online I save money, you save money, and your order to cash cycle is shorter, interested?