e-commerce
Surfers at work
Critical lessons
On-track
Critical steps
Strategie actions
Integrated solution
What's NewS Issue 5 August/September 2000
In the end, the pilot program serves as a
strategie stepping stone in developing RI's
'e-plan' of action. Creating, implementing
and evaluating these pilots gives the
eCommerce team concrete signals, telling
them if they're heading down the right
road, or if a new approach is needed. 'Of
course we have to be selective about the
pilots we design,' explains Sabina Goertz,
director of eCommerce. 'Since we can
only work with a limited number of
clients, it's important that we choose ini-
tiatives that will add value to both the
cliënt and the bank. But no matter how
successful the pilot is, we learn from the
experience. We're functioning on an ex-
tremely steep learning curve - and we, as
well as the cliënt, face a certain amount of
risk. But in the end, we see what our
clients need, how to offer them these ser
vices and how we're going to best position
the bank in the e-marketplace.'
While deciding on plans of action is a ma
jor task, another is simply managing ex-
pectations. According to Goertz, one of
the major obstacles the team faces is that
clients are not always sure of the services
the y want. They vaguely know they want
to go 'online', but they're often not aware
of the real actions that need to take place
to turn their plans into reality. 'We get
very few concrete questions,' Goertz ex
plains. 'So, it's crucial that we keep track
of what's happening in the market. Not
only do we see what the competition is
doing, but we develop a better under-
standing of our clients' needs. We're part
of an on-going process and it's our job to
translate the needs of the market into di
rect actions.'
But the 'human' side is only part of the
equation - before a fully integrated inter
national network can go to the web, cer
tain technical steps need to taken. For ex-
ample, an online seller receives a request
from a buyer. Two key elements in the
transaction are verification and authoriza-
tion. First, how can the seller verify that
the buyer is who he says he is? And, how
will the seller ensure the buyer is autho-
rized to perform the transaction? This is
where an online trust broker comes into
play, establishing that the information
provided by the buyer is legitimate - and
securing safe, expedient transactions.
While this kind of structure is not yet in
place, RI's tech teams are working hard to
solve this and other issues (see related arti-
cle). It's expected many of these 'e-stan-
dards' will be resolved in the near future.
'But again,' Goertz adds, 'we can't move
full speed ahead until these fundamental e-
security links are put in place. To make
the real e-marketplace revolution happen,
we depend on these basic mechanisms.
Until then, we're dealing with some very
small and basic web-enabled transactions.'
In recent issues, we asked you to teil
us about your favorite sites to visit
on the Net. Here's a brief suntmary of
the results:
From Peter Sugarman: 'The key to surfing the
web is a good search engine.'Try these:
www.google.com
www.ussc.alltheweb.com
ical searc
www.northernlight.com
www.completeplanet.com
www.reuters.com
www.gtnews.com
•farms.com
www.agroweb.com
www.agriculture.com
•profiles.wisi.com/profiles/food.htm
Be sure to visit the growing number of sites
we've created ourselves - they offer lots of
useful newsand info:
www.rabobank.com
•www.rabobank.nl
www.rabobankgroep.nl
www.rabobankgroup.com
www.vtraction.com
Mare Baselierssuggests:
www.cfo.web
•www.bloomberg.com
(numerous branches have also posted their own sites)
To contribute your web-tips, please email
Mirjam Diepenbrock.
In the meantime, work contittues to stay
aboard the speeding train of e-commerce,
At the F&A workshops in late June in
Scheveningen, the eCommerce team out-
lined a strategie plan for the short-term.
Understanding clients' needs: Sabina Goertz
Leveraging RI's position as the world's top
F&A bank, the following points were out-
lined:
offering corporate and investment bank
ing services and products on the Inter
net;
extending and commercializing F&A
knowledge for online, real time global
consumption. Initiatives include: F&A
news and data on the web; in-depth
strategie research, special sector infor
mation and customer analysis; and
supporting clients in establishing new
exchanges, and entering strategie al-
liances to provide a common, integrated
platform to F&A marketplace and to of
fer a complete package of finaneial ser
vices to F&A exchanges.
In the end, a crucial element of any suc
cessful strategy is that it fits into and
complements the existing organization.
'The last thing we want to do is create a
framework alongside or independent of
the organization,' Steffen stresses. 'In or
der to efficiently enter the e-marketplace,
we need to work within the existing
structure. It's essential that we use our
resources to confidently and coopera-
tively take RI to the next level in e-com
merce.'
What's News will be monitoring
developments closely and informing you
of e-updates as they happen.
