The Indian private sector has already recognized the attractive economics of e-business. Clearly, the opportunity (and theneed) for Indian businesses to get onto the e-business power curve is really quite high. Needless to add, that the potentialexists. The size of the transactions over the net at Rs10 crore by the end of 1999 approximately, a piddling size whencompared to the world, which is expected to cross $300 billion by the year 2002. Unlike in the past, where existing attitudes have posed major challenges to adopting a new way of life, with the Internet it hasbeen rather a smooth sailing, thanks to the extraordinary levels of Internet awareness in the country.As a result of this, companies have been more open to taking studied chances, as is evident. Here, we are not just talking ofcompanies that have static web sites but those which conduct commerce on the net like Color Plus, India Book Shop,bababazaar, Rediff-on-the-net and Shoppers Stop, selling from books and shirts to vegetables and soaps. The lack of infrastructure was a serious impediment, but bottlenecks are soon being removed. With several private value-addednetworks (VANs) coming up and with the reach of Internet expanding, this is becoming less of a problem.In fact, collective experience indicates that firms can deploy e-commerce solutions over the current infrastructure and realizesignificant benefits from them. To be fair, this is one area that has received focus from the highest levels and there is feverishactivity to build bigger bandwidth and crucial payment gateways, which will enable online credit card authorization Indeed, there is much at stake for, say, an automobile company or a fast-moving consumer goods company which hasmultiple offices with different manufacturing sites and warehouses etc across the country. Infact ,Dynamix-a softwareinfrastructure solutions company, is in the process of helping TELCO to replicate the Ford "just in time technology" Th...
