Automation goes wireless

By By Peter Dunning, president and CEO of FacilityPro.com -- Purchasing, 12/22/2000

Imagine a business world where everything is wireless. A world where the B2B shakeout leaves only three e-markets in each vertical industry. A world where no pure dot.coms are left standing.

Looking today at the B2B game, the first inning is barely over. Wireless communications are accomplishing numerous and complex business transactions. In facilities management, the day will come when companies eliminate 99% of warehousing and inventory problems by designing systems that allow their facilities managers to conduct purchasing, maintain warehouse inventory and track products in transit anywhere in the world-completely wireless.

And as wireless transactions continue to increase, so does the automation process. The result in 2010: A network of electronic markets that will be able to interact with each other through an automated, wireless system via real-time brokering. The extent of this change is only limited by our imaginations. However, no matter how automated transactions become, machines will never be capable of answering subjective process questions nor will they be able to conduct personal negotiations. Such actions can be electronically assisted, but not entirely automated.

Coming soon is the shakeout and emergence of dot.-com vertical industry leaders. In each vertical, there will emerge one or two successful marketplaces that will make it into the future. Moving forward, analysts and media outlets will be forced to focus on a handful of accomplished players in each vertical, simply because there won't be enough manpower to cover the small players-new or old. Sufficient market liquidity will develop, similar to the way that only two or three stock exchanges have dominated and held control. In other words, only the strong, or strongly branded, will survive.

With consolidation comes elimination. Successful markets will be industry-sponsored, as opposed to venture-capital exchanges. Industry consortiums, brick-and-mortar powerhouses with more money, more resources and additional control spend, will sweep aside the independent dot.coms at an exponential rate into the future.

Far fetched? No one can know for certain what tomorrow will bring. The year 2010 seems light years away. But, then again, didn't 2000?

Facilitypro.com is a Net marketplace for commercial facilities professionals and their suppliers, addressing needs of property management companies, retail and corporate properties, real estate investment trusts and service providers to these markets.