Anybody know GE's phone number? ...
General Electric to Convert $5 Billion in Spending to Extranets, Reports InternetWeek; Would Force Internet Development Among its Suppliers
02:15 p.m Aug 14, 1998 Eastern
MANHASSET, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 14, 1998--General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) is constructing a massive extranet to handle billions of dollars in purchasing and, in the process, pressure tens of thousands of its suppliers to conduct business on the Internet, according to an exclusive report to appear in the August 17 issue of CMP Media's InternetWeek.
The networking newspaper reports that GE plans to launch trading extranets for each of its 12 operating units. The systems could serve as many as 40,000 trading partners by 2002, all of which would have to use the network in order to do business with GE.
Randy Rowe, manager of GE's corporate initiatives group, told Editor at Large John Evan Frook: "Today, we have too many purchasing systems to count. We're looking to enable each of the divisions to manage their purchasing on extranets, with financial data funneling to a centralized platform."
The extranet strategy could dramatically boost GE's bottom line by reducing costs, according to Rowe. At full deployment, GE could save between $500 million and $750 million through reduced errors, contract leverage that results in lower costs and other efficiencies.
"By converting some $5 billion in capital spending to an extranet within four years, GE stands to become one of the largest Internet-based buyers around," writes Frook.
The spending volume GE expects to send over the extranets would represent an estimated 14 percent of its projected $35 billion in capital expenditures for fiscal 2001--compared with less than 1 percent today.
"GE's plan may ratchet up the rate of Internet development across broad sectors," analyst Scott Lundstrom at AMR Research Inc. told InternetWeek. "There's a line of reasoning that would say if GE is going to put the gun to the head of 40,000 substantial industrial companies and call on them to make their enterprises Internet-ready, then those businesses are going to leverage an Internet infrastructure more rapidly."
In addition to being published in the August 17 issue of InternetWeek, Frook's complete reporting will be posted on the networking newspaper's Web site, internetwk.com.
CMP Media's InternetWeek provides news, reviews, case studies and business analysis to 215,000 information-technology buyers building IP networks and Web-based computing architectures for the enterprise. The newspaper's award-winning coverage focuses on electronic commerce, intranet applications, clients and servers, bandwidth developments, security management and business news. It was lauded for editorial excellence in the Neal Awards program of American Business Press and received an award for design excellence from the Society of Publication Designers. InternetWeek's Web site is at internetwk.com.
CMP Media Inc. (Nasdaq: CMPX) is a leading high-tech media company providing essential information and marketing services to the broad technology spectrum--the builders, sellers and users of technology worldwide. With its portfolio of newspapers, magazines, custom publishing, Internet products and conferences, CMP is uniquely positioned to offer marketers comprehensive, integrated solutions tailored to meet their individual needs. Online editions of the company's print publications, along with products and services created exclusively for the Internet, can be found on CMPnet at cmpnet.com. NSTL, the company's independent testing lab, serves government, corporate and technology-vendor clients around the world.
Copyright 1998, Business Wire |
