This one will be hot. The co-founder and CEO is one of BW 25 e.biz.
Glen Meakem
Glen Meakem may look as buttoned-down as a Young
Republican, but don't let his carefully combed coif and pressed
khakis fool you. This guy lives close to the edge. Consider that
Meakem, a U.S. Army Reserve engineer, asked to be sent to the
Persian Gulf war: Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion of Kuwait
''kind of pissed me off,'' he growls.
Risk turns Meakem on. That's why he left a solid job at GE
Information Services in 1995 to start his own company,
FreeMarkets Inc. in Pittsburgh. It's a Web-based exchange that
allows businesses, ranging from utilities to farm equipment
makers, to post a list of products they want to buy, while
suppliers compete for the business. If Meakem's concept takes
root, it could revolutionize business-to-business commerce.
''They're using the Internet to threaten traditional pricing,'' says
John J. Sviokla, a Net strategist at Diamond Technology Partners
Inc. in Chicago. ''That's a big deal.''
Meakem's selling proposition is alluring. FreeMarkets will raise
the quality of the products and services you buy, while lowering
the price you pay for them by 15% to 20%. Customers are
starting to go for the pitch. Last year, FreeMarkets ran auctions
covering $1 billion worth of purchase orders and generating $7.8
million in revenues for itself. ''The reason we save money is that we're creating competition
where there wasn't any before,'' says Meakem. ''We mint our buyers money.'' Now there's a
risky proposition. |
