The net with no limits
Electronic procurement and trading via Internet still brings even more benefits

Despite the IT disillusionment of past months and the bitter crash of supposed high-fliers, money can still be made with E-business. Firstly by simpler and more favourable procurement, and secondly through new sales outlets, which have maintained their attraction of offering complete IT solutions through to Internet. This is just as much true for small chemical companies as for large ones.
In companies in which the motto "Conentrate on our core competence" makes the rounds, electronic procurement, the selling of company products via Internet and the infrastructure they require should actually already have been installed. All firms in the chemical industry follow this logic in theory, and Frost&Sullivan predict from their study a distinct increase in online purchasing from 1% in year 2000 to 60% in year 2005. Despite this, middle-class companies get bad marks with respect to the creation of the infrastructure required for this market. The study simultaneously revealed a considerable backlog demand in the application of integrated IT solutions, although Internet sales could tap new resources in export for the presently hard-hit chemical industry. In addition, appropriate software solutions would enable small companies in particular to utilize their advantages of greater flexibility and transparency to outplay large concerns. This is where SAP.readytowork-solutions come in. The software maps the complete process chain - system houses such as TDS or ICM are ready for specific chemical or pharmaceutical queries - and synchronizes the complete business, as well as supply relationships and sales via Internet.