E-Business Market Strategy Development

Creating a High-Impact, Achievable Plan

While nearly every company has attempted to create an e-business market strategy, studies show that few organizations succeed in realizing positive results—or a solid return on their investment.

GMT is a consulting firm that helps clients in a broad range of industries to achieve their e-business growth objectives—by defining e-business market strategies that are inherently achievable, as well as aligned with the top-level strategic goals of their organizations.

Unlike specialized consultants who focus on advocating and creating e-business initiatives, GMT understands the complex interplay of channels, customers, geographic regions, and functional departments within a business enterprise—and helps its clients to objectively weigh the benefits and drawbacks of various e-business choices.

GMT's partnerships with information systems integrators and developers enable the firm to ensure high-quality, cost-effective e-business solutions—without a vested interest in recommending one solution over another. Instead, GMT offers an unbiased view of the marketplace—and the opportunities in both offline and online sales and marketing channels.

The result is a high-impact e-business market strategy that reflects the long-term goals for the entire organization—and leads to growth across all channels.

GMT's e-business market strategy development process includes three distinct phases: developing an e-business market concept, defining and prioritizing available opportunities, and creating a robust business model. Throughout these phases, GMT and its technology partners consider and apply all relevant e-business tools, including external Web sites and corporate intranets that facilitate strategy deployment.

E-Business Market Concept Development

Based on each client's unique top-level market goals—as well as an assessment of such factors as internal readiness, the market situation, and the industry landscape—GMT first works to develop an e-business market concept for the organization.

Will the business emerge as a direct online retailer? Support existing distributors through e-business tools? Use its Web site as a marketing tool? Join or create a digital marketplace? Apply e-business tools to dramatically improve customer service? Or some combination of these?

GMT leads clients through an initial phase of concept discovery, screening, and elaboration that leads to a broad e-business market identity for each business.

Identifying and Prioritizing E-Market Opportunities

When an initial e-business concept has been defined, GMT works with client teams to identify and prioritize the many market opportunities available. For example, e-business tools and channels can be applied to address the following range of strategic opportunities:

	Improving customer satisfaction
	Reducing cycle time and accelerating speed to market
	Growing market share
	Lowering sales and marketing costs
	Fostering product or market innovation
	Increasing brand awareness
	Expanding geographic reach
	Capturing and sharing customer information through database creation
	Leveraging e-marketplaces

With so many potential applications and benefits of e-business sales and marketing tools, it's critical that organizations make sound decisions about the viability of each strategic choice, the potential financial rewards, the capital investments needed, the inherent risks, and the urgency associated with any one option.

E-Business Market Model Design

After the client organization has identified and prioritized its e-business opportunities—and a broad e-business strategy has begun to take shape—GMT leads the design of a business model that will enable the attainment of e-business market goals.

This model design phase includes the following:

	Clear definition of e-business market objectives
	Identification of customers, traditional markets, and existing digital marketplaces
	Development of an e-business marketing plan
	Identification of sales intermediaries and their roles
	Definition of channel management strategies
	Development of an organizational market model
	Creation of a phase-in implementation plan

After GMT has led the client organization through these steps, the business is ready to draft a comprehensive, highly detailed e-business market plan.

GMT: Intelligent E-Business Market Decisions

There is an almost endless array of strategic choices that organizations must consider in entering e-business markets. Depending on their unique products, services, and channel relationships, all manufacturers face a range of e-business options—from Internet branding and marketing support to direct online selling.

With its broad business perspective, GMT is uniquely qualified to lead clients through the complex process of identifying and prioritizing the many available e-business market options—and developing a high-impact strategy that results in a significant return on investment across all sales channels.