Engineering effective e-commerce
e-commerce
4 What's NewS Issue 5 August/September 2000
Barely a day goes by without the release of a new e-commerce product by just
about every industry. Financial services is no exception, and neither is Rabobank.
While waves of products and services are beating at our Internet door, web-
enabling and securing our offering is a tough proposition. In this 'e-special', we
look at what's happening around the network. First, strategy - What's NewS talks
to the small, but driven eCommerce team, who is working hard to navigate the
sea of e-hype and anchor our future in this rapidly-changing market.
Challenging market
Innovating the network
Developing expertise
All around the network, teams are
working hard to take advantage of
the potential of e-business and increase
RI's 'e-presence'. Several intiatives have al-
ready set us on the path, inciuding our
website rabobank.com, treasury markets'
Rabo DealAssist and TreasuryWeb, vTrac-
tion, New York's customer access pro
gram (CAPS), and very recently, capital
markets' warrants.com (see related arti-
cles). And toward year's end forex and
money markets, documentary credits and
payment systems are expected to enter the
external e-market as well. But a crucial
step remains - creating an international
online framework for the corporate and
finaneial markets. Len Steffen and Sabina
Goertz are the forces navigating RI's next
step into e-business - their eComnterce of
fice has only been up and running since 1
May, but the team is quickly paving the
Moving Rl ahead in e-commerce: Len Steffen
way to a concrete and directed strategie
plan. 'Right now everyone is looking into
web-enabling exchanges, trade, and simi-
lar transactions,' says Steffen, business
manager of eCommerce. 'But what we
first need to ask ourselves is how RI wants
to position itself in this market. What
products do our clients need? How are we
going to package these services? These
questions must be answered before exten-
sive time, effort and money are invested
into further e-business initiatives.'
While it takes time to fully answer these
complex questions, the world of e-com
merce continues to develop at an alarming
pace. Time is a hot commodity. 'The irony
here,' Steffen explains, 'is if you sit back
and plan step by step, you'11 always be be-
hind. The environment created by e-cont-
merce is about quick thinking - requiring
fast and efficiënt decision-making. And of
course, that also means we're faced with a
number of challenges.' This is why the es
tablishment of a strategie 'e-frantework' is
so critical - with the right planning mech-
anism in place, potential risks and losses
in the e-marketplace are minimized while
the great opportunities are optimized. In
this new realm, traditional decision-mak
ing models don't apply - 'given the time
pressure and relative youth of this mar
ket,' continues Steffen, 'choices have to be
made on the basis of vision, rather than as
fully worked out business plans. What
this means is a highly selective, focused,
committed and above-all controlled ap-
proach for the short and long term.' At
this point, this entails web-enabling some
basic transactions, such as documentary
credits and transfers, treasury products
and cross-border payments. Whatever the
final strategy will be, these basic building
blocks are necessary to get Rl moving in
e-business.
So how are we deciding what needs to be
done? How will Rl stay ahead of the
game? In some ways, it's business as
usual. There's some great potential in the
power of web-enabled transactions, but
the key is using e-commerce to add value
to our existing business. 'What people
sometimes fail to realize," explains Steffen,
'is that the finaneial business itself hasn't
changed. We're still working with the
same principles - money continues to
move frorn point "A" to "B". E-business
doesn't change that.' An online transac
tion between buyers and sellers is really
no more than a very rapid exchange of e-
mails. The real infrastructural change, the
vision, is the developntent of new prod
ucts, tools, and services that will offer
something uniquelv different to the e-mar
ketplace, and of course, to the cliënt.
Deciding just what 'uniquelv different'
means requires a deep and thorough
understanding of the needs in the e-mar
ketplace. To do this, Steffen and Goertz
are in close contact with several top-tier
clients to develop pi lot programs.
Working with individual customers who
want to participate in online exchanges
with the bank, the eCommerce team
identifies a client's needs and then links
into RI's vast knowledge network to find
the necessary finaneial and technical
support. 'We're not creating the prod
ucts here,' explains Steffen. 'Our role is
to be project facilitators - linking the
customer, the product people, and the
technical staff - to ultimately bring the
pilot to its online destination.' Tapping
into RI's and Rabobank Nederland's re
source base in this way has proved a
useful and insightful process - not only
by speeding the process to online com-
patihilitv, but also in identifying gaps -
where additional work and development
are needed. 'We piek up a certain spec
trum of market requirements,' Steffen
adds, 'and it's our responsibility to make
sure that these market needs are being
met by market management. We not
only want to insure that the cooperation
is taking place to make it happen - but
it's essential that this message is commu-
nicated: we must tap into the potential
of e-business now.'
