Foreword

The dot-coms may have busted, but e-commerce is alive and well. All types of companies are embracing e-commerce methods and succeeding. From small to large, organizations around the world are figuring out how to leverage the Internet as a business tool.

To win on the Internet, you must understand where the opportunity is today and how to prepare for tomorrow. This book is a guide to reality. It shows you where there is opportunity. It also shows you how to benefit from using the Internet as a practical business tool and how to reap benefits quickly and permanently. This book shows you how to succeed in a competitive environment without having to spend millions of dollars doing so.

You need to know the building blocks, but you also need to know how to put those blocks together in a winning combination to build a good foundation for your business to grow and thrive in the world of electronic commerce. The blocks are just like parts to a puzzle. They will not work unless you properly combine tools, methods, and know how to exploit opportunity. This book explains Internet business models, business applications that can be supported on the Internet, and how companies can benefit from using new models and new tools.

After you learn about the parts and how to put them together to supercharge your company, you will also need to know how and where to drive your new business machine. Other how-to-do-business-on-the-Internet books leave you high and dry and never tell you how to drive. This book shows you how to drive your business like a race car, how to steer through uncertainty, and how to grip the road so you do not end up in a dot-com graveyard.

But, you will need more than just the gas pedal if you are going to succeed in electronic commerce. Entering the world of electronic commerce is like going on a safari or expedition into unexplored lands. You need to be able to navigate your business into uncharted territory. You need balance, intuition, and considerable daring if you are going to maximize the tools of the Internet. You need to know where the edge of the cliff is and how to not fall off, like so many of those who came before you. That is the big payoff of this book.

Michael Erbschloe
Educator, Author, and Technology Strategist
Carlsbad, California