The Net: What'S Your Handle Corporate America?

Recently, corporations of all sizes have been jumping on the Web bandwagon, and many have been complaining of clogged lines and slow response times. But it has been unclear whether corporate interest would wane with the rising costs of maintaining pretty but expensive Web sites that generated little in revenue from the surfing public.

And there has been many a voice of doom saying the system was ready to collapse.

Michael Bloomberg, president of the Bloomberg Financial Markets information service, recently told a Boston audience that the Internet was a fad ready to fade to little more than a niche product. He said its rise and fall would be similar to the much-maligned Citizens Band radio craze of the 1970s. The Internet has a place out there, but it's just another way of distributing information, he said.

 

Deloitte & Touche released a survey this week, however, showing that North American companies still seemed quite eager to be on the Web in the coming months.

The survey found that 96 per cent of corporate respondents across North America expect their use of the Internet to increase over the next two years. Of that total, 65 per cent forecasted a significant increase while 32 per cent saw a slight increase.

Deloitte & Touche, in its eighth annual survey, canvassed the thoughts of the top computer geeks (otherwise known as chief information officers) at 431 North American corporations.

Those chief information officers represented companies from a broad spectrum of North American industries, including manufacturing, retail, publishing, energy, banking and insurance. Revenues of the companies surveyed ranged from under $100 million to more than $5 billion.

Nearly seven out of 10 of the corporations already have Internet access, according to the survey, so any expansion would come from a running start.

The survey highlighted that corporations are already pretty savvy users of the Net, using such tools as e-mail as well as conducting marketing and business transactions over the Net.

Somewhat surprisingly, the survey also found 47 per cent of corporate respondents have used the Internet for research.

So how did the corporations plan to increase their use of the Internet? The companies saw all the various activities increasing fairly sharply. But two activities stood out: electronic commerce and marketing.

Corporations planning to conduct business transactions, or electronic commerce, were expected to jump to 22 per cent from the current 7 per cent. Another 40 per cent plan to evaluate the opportunity of Internet commerce. This increase should not come as a complete surprise since many Internet watchers have been predicting an explosion of Internet commerce, especially with adoption of standards to protect credit card transactions in the next few months.

The Internet is also destined to become an even greater marketing tool, something that might not be entirely welcomed by the more traditional, individual Web surfer.

The survey predicted another 30 per cent plan to use the Internet to hawk their products, in addition to the 26 per cent already using it for that purpose.

These numbers suggest continued exponential growth in the Internet by the corporate patrons. And it certainly flies in the face of persistent comments that somehow the Internet is ready to fade from the horizon out of boredom or lack of use.