Analysis of Japan's B2B public e-marketplaces

Abstract

Japan's industries have great expectations for the future of B2B public e-marketplaces, but the e-marketplace revolution in Japan is still at an early stage of development, and most have not yet produced satisfactory results. In this thesis, my objectives are to investigate and report on the major issues and challenges that impact the future success of Japan's public e-marketplaces, as well as to identify critical success factors. I conducted interviews with representatives of eight e-marketplaces in different industries. In those interviews, I learned that the unique characteristics of Japan's business environment, such as intermediates, Keiretsu-based business, and delays in the penetration of IT into small and medium-size enterprises, have had a major influence on the development of Japan's public e-marketplaces. Moreover, since it is customary for companies that try to change their internal business processes to encounter resistance and political pressure from both inside and outside companies, the e-marketplaces must expend an extraordinary amount of company effort and time to achieve success. The following are the key critical success factors I identified during the interviews: * take an honest and sound approach; * respect traditional business practices; * offer value-added services that benefit customers; * offer off-line customer support as well as on-line services; * develop an effective alliance strategy. I believe these critical success factors are fairly universal, and could be equally useful in the public e-marketplaces of Japan's other industries.