December 13, 1999

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E-Transformation
The Fast Track To Becoming An E-Business
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Twentieth Century Fox in Beverly Hills, Calif., is an example of the immersion model of E-business, with Web initiatives and applications springing up in multiple business units across the enterprise. "There's been a real transformation in the way IT is viewed in our business," says Yaros. "Part of it's the cachet of being on the Web--it's sexy. But executives are seeing that there are real ways that money can be saved and customers can be reached."

One of the first Web projects to be conceived and planned was Atlas, a browser-accessible suite of apps that will give the company's overseas video distribution licensees access to release schedules and business results by product and by country. Fox's own managers will also use the system for business planning in countries where Fox has retained distribution rights. Stephen Moore, president of Twentieth Century Fox's international home-entertainment group, says the deployment of Atlas later this month is more important than the overseas video release of the next Fox blockbuster movie.

Atlas uses an Oracle data warehouse, data mining tools from MicroStrategy Inc. and Business Objects SA, and reporting tools from Actuate Corp. Users access the data through HTML pages using JavaScript via middleware from Forté Software Inc. "Our third-party partners can find out how any Fox product is performing anywhere in the world, and create business plans for other products based on that data," says Yaros. Atlas was instrumental in clinching a deal Fox recently won with MGM for the international distribution rights to MGM products.

The system has helped spark E-business initiatives in other Fox business units whose executives heard about the enthusiasm for Atlas at internal company conferences or by word of mouth. Fox's non-theater distribution channels, such as airlines and cruise-ship operators, now complete their transactions with Fox online. Overseas licensees can download digital press and promotional materials, an initiative that Yaros says will pay for itself in less than a year in reduced printing and mailing costs. And three months ago, Fox began sending digital movie trailers to Sun Microsystems servers at its regional offices and some licensees on its virtual private network, using Lotus' Domino server and Notes' replication feature.

"To us, E-business is bigger than Web-enabling our systems," says Yaros. "It has to be interaction with our partners, people who aren't part of the Fox corporation but have to transact business with us. Then we can help them reach out to their customers, too."

Millipore Corp. is also moving in the direction of E-business immersion. The Bedford, Mass., company manufactures the type of highly specialized and technical products that don't leap to mind when you think E-commerce. The company makes purification products, ranging from simple lab filters to $2 million water-treatment systems, and about 60% of its business is outside the United States.

Last week, Millipore officially launched its Web commerce site for one segment of its business, the research laboratory market. It's starting its E-business there for a very simple reason: that's what its customers wanted. But if the momentum of online product research, purchasing, and negotiating price quotes (for higher-ticket items) by the laboratory market builds in the way Millipore expects, it's prepared to deploy E-business capabilities elsewhere in the company.

"It's ready to scale up," says Tom Anderson, Millipore's director of corporate communications, who has headed the company's Internet efforts for the past two years. "All of our functions, divisions, and geographies have been involved in the strategy from the beginning. We had to be aware of all of our divisions' needs, but we wanted to focus on certain areas first."

Millipore has had an electronic product catalog, built on an Oracle database with software from the Stibo Group, for several years. But it's now ready for commerce with Open Market's OM-Commerce application and integrated with Millipore's Oracle ERP system so that customers get real-time inventory availability and pricing information on the Web site. Millipore uses Lotus' Domino server to manage and distribute the large volume of technical information that's available online along with the catalog.

Millipore's site is also linked to sites run by the General Services Administration and the National Institutes of Health, extending commerce capabilities to larger research communities. In keeping with its global emphasis, Millipore's catalog is available in eight European languages, with Japanese to be added early next year.

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