The agenda Gartner Group Inc will be following as the backdrop for its October symposium is what it has coined ‘c-commerce’ or collaborative commerce. This, it believes, will be the way for companies to save money by linking personnel, suppliers and customers in integrated web networks.
Gartner will look at strategies for creating these ‘virtual’ multicompany enterprises at its October event, but quite clearly wants to set the mood and get a buzz going around c-commerce in advance. It thinks c-commerce applications will replace static, web-enabled supply-chain applications by 2002. It sounds like what Gartner is saying is that the network is, or will become, the application.
It says Fortune 1000 companies will have c-commerce IT strategies by 2004. Current ERP and supply chain applications are focused on supporting transactions and optimization within the single enterprise or, at best, within and among the enterprise and its more traditional, strategic trading partners. C-commerce applications will move beyond that level of support to enable multiple enterprises to work together online within a dynamic trading community or cybermarket in which relationships are far more fluid and opportunistic.
It thinks i2, SAP, IBM, Oracle and Microsoft are already in pursuit of these technologies while some industries are already using collaborative technologies such as digital mock-up which enables manufacturers and suppliers to work together on product or part designs. Also important will be processware which enables inter-enterprise business processes and workflow, reducing inventory and manufacturing/distribution cycle times. While most ISVs won’t write applications designed specifically for c- commerce, they will have to integrate with them, Gartner says.
