After a year of testing, British Telecommunications Plc has launched its Electronic Data Interchange service, EDI*NET, which is being run as part of its Global Network Services. As a late entrant into what is a relatively mature market, BT will obviously face some problems, but has come up with a couple of twists in order to try to worm its data interchange service into customer sites. The first of the twists is that BT’s Global Network Services already have substantial market penetration, with over 100,000 customers in the UK, 570 in mainland Europe, 333 in the Pacific Rim and 8,450 in North America, according to the company’s own figures. In the UK, the Service is claimed to be used by 80% of the Times Top 100 companies. More surprisingly, BT’s purchase of Tymnet means that it can claim to reach 50% of the Fortune 500 companies, a good proportion of which are EDI customers already, since Tymnet has been running a commercial data interchange service in the US for some ten years, for which it has around 3,000 customers, according to Tom Warner, product manager for EDI*NET in Europe. Nonetheless, many customers of Global Network Services will already be signed up to a competing EDI service, so how is BT going to get them to sign up for the BT service? In a nutshell, by not levying a connection charge, keeping the service cheap, simple and able to support as many existing standards as possible. Compared with the way in which Sunbury-on-Thames-based International Network Services Ltd, say, treats the market, BT is going for a make ’em cheap, pile ’em high approach. So BT will not sell software – instead it supplies a list of certified software vendors whose products have been tested. There is minimal consultancy and support and the tariff complexity has been pared down in an effort to make them easy to understand. As a result, there are no registration or subscription charges; sending and receiving costs 14 pence between 5am and 9pm (Greenwich Mean Time) on weekdays, and 10 pence at other times. A minimum monthly charge of between UKP50 and UKP350 is levied depending on mailbox type, and there are discount agreements for users. It is an imaginative strategy – BT is not going to try to take away users from their competitors as much as slip in beside them: in theory, existing data interchange software should be able to link to the BT network and the lack of a connection charge should help the company build its Global Network Service user-base among smaller companies, which need to join EDI services in order to communicate with their large customers. As a method of marketing then, BT’s unbundled approach is diametrically opposed to INS’s total solution support. INS charges UKP5,000 to connect a personal computer to its net, including software, training and consultancy. Connect a mini or a mainframe and the cost is UKP4,250, excluding software. Which approach will win is going to depend whether users prefer the bundled or unbundled approach; Warner says BT will be able to give users more than adequate support with a 24-hour support line, electronic mail support and the standard Global Network Service service-level agreements. John Jenkins, INS corporate marketing manager on the other hand says his firm’s ability to offer one-stop shopping and to integrate software tightly with the International Network Services network will ensure continued success.
