Does it have to be grey?

Whilst many 'consumer' tools and techniques are also found in the B-2-B environment, e-commerce between businesses goes a long way beyond shopping baskets and email campaigns. At least, it should.

Customer extranets, for example, are as much about service delivery as they are order taking. At least, they should be. When properly designed and integrated with existing back office systems they can be powerful new routes to market, increasing overall volumes 24/7 without simply cannibalising other sales channels. They can be support lines, helpdesks, CRM, accounts and administration departments too, all at once. They can facilitate supply chains and control essential business processes and workflow, and can add further value by generating the sort of detailed reports that statisticians with very big calculators can only dream of.

That's just for starters. If you'd like to talk intelligently about how to optimise your online services to maximise business performance, we'd happily expand.