Carving out a spot in e-commerce revolution.

• Author: Fedeli, Peter
• Position: Guest Columnist

Electronic commerce is predicted to reach a staggering $7 trillion US on a global scale by 2004, and it is important for Canadian business to carve its place in the electronic commerce revolution. It is definitely not business as usual. The rapid rise of the Internet has been one of the most dramatic changes in the business world in the last 150 years, sending companies scrambling to adapt to a whole new way of working. While many firms have hastily designed Web sites just to be a part of the action, others have boldly embraced e-business, creating headlines with their success stories and their failures. Still other businesses have adopted a more prudent, wait-and-see approach, choosing to learn first from the pioneers.

Now that the dust is beginning to settle, it is clear that e-business is here to stay and that we have only seen a small part of its full potential. Undoubtedly, successful companies will increasingly depend on sound e-business strategies to prosper in the new economy. And the good news is that we can learn from the experiences of those who have already paved the way.

These are a few of the reasons why the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) is increasingly involved in supporting knowledge-based industries and helping small and medium-sized companies redefine the way they do business by embracing e-commerce.

The BDC, itself, is engaging in CyberBIZ, offering innovative e-business solutions to clients of the bank. BDC Connex, the virtual bank, offers all of the, bank's financial products online. And some of those products are designed specifically to help clients take the plunge into the world of e-commerce. For example, innovation financing provides assistance of up to $250,000 for projects related to developing an Internet, intranet or extranet site. The BDC Consulting Group has developed e-business readiness and e-business relevancy self-diagnostic tools. These self-diagnostic tools are designed to measure either the relevancy of e-business to your firm or the readiness of your firm with regard to e-business planning and implementation.

Each of these diagnostic tools asks a series of questions that are divided into categories. Upon completion of each...