Irish and European businesses have the opportunity to capture the Internet by focusing on business-to-business e-commerce rather than the US-dominated business-to-consumer sector, a conference in Dublin has heard.
Mr Mark Suster, chief executive officer of BuildOnline said that American companies had dominated the Internet until now. He was speaking at a conference organised by the Chambers of Commerce of Ireland on SMEs and e-business.
However, he said the current online market consisted of mainly business-to-consumer e-commerce, which would in the future only make up 10 per cent of the market.
Mr Suster said that by targeting business-to-business e-commerce, which is just beginning to develop, Europe can challenge US dominance. He said business-to-business e-commerce will be 10 times larger than the business-to-consumer sector.
He added that buyers will win through reduced procurement costs, while sellers will gain from expanded geographies and lower costs.
To compete with their US counterparts, Mr Suster said that Irish businesses will have to operate in and consider Europe as a single market.
The Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Ms Harney, said earlier that the Government was trying to create a climate amenable to innovation and risk-taking, and Mr Suster said that the Government must encourage more people and businesses to get online.
To advance the growth of business-to-business e-commerce in Ireland, a new "all-Ireland" business-to-business electronic marketplace, iCommerce.ie, was announced at the conference.
iCommerce.ie, which will be launched in May, will offer access to more than 100,000 companies in Northern Ireland and the Republic. It is a joint venture between the Chambers of Commerce of Ireland and iCommerce, a part of IT consultancy Comit Gruppe (Ireland) with Business & Finance magazine as its media partner.
Seed capital of £1 million is already in place and it is believed iCommerce is negotiating with an Irish institution with a view to raising up to £10 million in financing to be put in place before the summer.
Business and Finance will provide rolling business news and information as well as promoting the iCommerce marketplace through its publications, conferences and database of 45,000 companies.
Mr Malcolm O'Byrne, research and press officer with the Chambers, said that the marketplace would allow companies to cut costs by cutting out the middleman and reducing time spent on paperwork.
The benefits of B2B for companies will be different from the business-to-consumer market, which focused almost entirely on lower product costs, he said.
