B2B Electronic Marketplaces

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Journal of Global Information Management, 12(1), 41-59, Jan-Mar 2004 41
Adaptive Strategies of Firms in

High-Velocity Environments:
The Case of B2B Electronic
Marketplaces
Jai Ganesh, Infosys Technologies Limited, India
T.R. Madanmohan, P.D. Jose and Sudhi Seshadri
Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, India
ABSTRACT
The adaptation-evolution strategies of firms have been a major area of interest. Internet based
businesses operate in highly unstable environments witnessing shakeouts and changes in the
industry structure. In this paper, we focus on the adaptive strategies and paths of adaptation of
independent B2B marketplaces. The independent B2B marketplaces have undergone tremen-
dous change with regard to their business models and products/services. Since their inception
as pure market makers, these marketplaces have morphed into integration service providers
with market making being one of the functions. What makes the adaptive strategies of B2B
marketplaces interesting is the extremely short time period within which these changes hap-
pened. The research uses the case study methodology to identify the adaptive strategies of B2B
marketplaces in terms of their product/service class evolution. The results based on the case
studies suggest a three-stage adaptation model wherein the marketplaces progress through
stages such as aggregation, transactions and integration.
Keywords: adaptation; high velocity environments; evolution; B2B marketplace; integra-

tion; collaboration
INTRODUCTION the failure of hundreds of B2B

exchanges, B2B e-commerce is
expected to reach US
The Internet is having a profound in-
fluence on the nature of interorganisational
commerce. According to Forrester Re-
search, business-to-business (B2B) elec-
tronic commerce (e-commerce) in the US
now stands at US $2.4 trillion. Inspite of
Copyright © 2014, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written
permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.
$3.9 trillion in 2003 (Business Week, 2003).
eMarketer predicts that worldwide busi-
ness-to-business ecommerce would reach
US $1.41 trillion by the end of 2003. Ac-
cording to eMarketer, the worldwide e-
commerce revenues will touch US $2.4 tril-
lion by 2004. B2B e-commerce refers to
transactions wherein both the buyer and
seller are organizations. Business-to-busi-
ness e-commerce is not a new concept and
42 Journal of Marketing, 12(1), 41-59, Jan-Mar 2014
we can trace it back to EDI (Electronic aggregation and disaggregation of informa-

Data Interchange). EDI allows businesses tion-based product components to match
and their partners to exchange information customer needs. They are able to overcome
through a standard set of transactions over some of the problems related to richness
value-added-networks (VANs). EDI facili- vs. reach of information, as they are able
tates transactions such as purchase orders, to facilitate real-time transactions. They
invoices, shipping notices and a multitude also enable new types of price discovery
of other documents. However, the high to be employed in different markets. B2B
costs associated with EDI can be afforded marketplaces also improve information
only by the large companies (Khazanchi, sharing between buyers and sellers, help-
1995, 1999). The common forms of B2B ing lower the cost of logistics and promot-
e-commerce include electronic procure- ing quick, just-in-time deliveries and reduced
ment, electronic catalog management sys- inventories.
tems, B2B marketplaces, etc. The broader B2B marketplaces can be broadly
business adoption of the Internet laid the classified into horizontal vs. vertical mar-
foundation upon which B2B marketplaces ketplaces, buy-side vs. sell-side market-
evolved. A number of business-to-business places, etc. For this research, we classify
marketplaces emerged to facilitate efficient them into public/independent, private and
commerce among organizations. These consortia marketplaces. A public/indepen-
marketplaces facilitate efficient search and dent marketplace, also known as neutral
transactions by offering services such as marketplace or third-party marketplace,
buyer/supplier and product/services search- brings together buyers and sellers within a
ing, transactions such as procurement and particular industry for the purpose of com-
asset disposal. In addition to their market merce. It provides content, value-added
making function, the marketplaces also of- services and transaction capabilities e.g.,
fer integration services such as supply chain Freemarkets. Private marketplaces are
and ERP integration and have entered into owned and operated by one company to
alliances with various firms to offer value- transact with a select group of suppliers.
added services such as vendor rating, lo- They have the potential to provide high
gistics, payment processing, etc. performance and tight integration with cur-
The Internet reduces search costs of rent suppliers, a facility provided by the tra-
buyers, resulting in price competition among ditional EDI model. Examples of enterprises
sellers Bakos (1991, 1997). Bakos (1997) that have embraced this model include: Wal-
explores the implications of reducing buy- Mart, Dell, Sun Microsystems, Amtrak, and
ers’ search cost in electronic marketplaces, Cisco. Consortia marketplaces are jointly
the benefits for buyer and seller, the social owned by several large enterprises that
welfare and the incentives to create such deploy applications and infrastructure to
a marketplace. Garicano and Kaplan (2000) facilitate collaboration and conduct business
provide empirical evidence that the ben- among trading partners. They are highly
efits of electronic marketplaces may come customized and integrated with the process
from price advantage as well as process of its founders, and hence require a large
improvement. B2B marketplaces differ investment and have longer implementa-
from the traditional marketplaces, as they tion schedules. Examples include Covisint,
offer increased personalization and E2Open, etc.
customization of product offerings, and Between mid-1998 and mid-2000,
Journal of Marketing, 12(1), 41-59, Jan-Mar 2014 43
nearly 1,900 public e-marketplaces (1,500 2001, the firm acted as a marketplace for
independent and 287 industry-sponsored) scientific and laboratory products, and gen-
were formed (Deloitte Research, 2001). erated revenues from transactions and ad-
Growth in the number of B2B marketplaces vertising. During 2001, Sciquest acted as a
has been stupendous. Very often, the busi- technology and solutions company provid-
ness models of many of the B2B marketing integrated e-commerce and asset man-
places have undergone rapid changes. To agement solutions for research enterprises.
illustrate the rapid changes in the business Currently, the firm is a software, informa-
models of the B2B marketplaces, we take tion and services company that generates
the example of two prominent marketplaces, revenues from license fee, subscription fee
Verticalnet and Sciquest. Both the market- and fee from services. Similarly, Verticalnet
places were founded during the year 1995. acted as a creator and operator of vertical
Tables 1 and 2 list the details about these trade communities until 2000. Sources of
marketplaces. We chronologically list the revenue were advertising, web site devel-
company description as well as their rev- opment fees and auction fees. During 2001,
enue model as per their filings with the SEC the firm started offering software solutions
(Securities and Exchange Commission). thereby generating revenues from software
Sciquest a prominent B2B player acted as licenses and professional services. During
an online marketplace for scientific prod- 2002, the firm morphed into a provider of
ucts until 1999. The firm generated rev- Collaborative Supply Chain solutions with
enues from advertising fees. During 1999- the main sources of revenue being license
Figure 1: Sciquest
Year About the company Revenue model
1995-1999 Online marketplace for Scientific Products Advertising revenues
targeted at researchers, scientists, and purchasing
managers
1999 – 2000 Web-based, interactive marketplace for scientific Advertising revenues
and laboratory products Revenue from e-commerce
transactions Advertising revenues
Commissions received from auctions
2001 Technology and solutions company providing Advertising revenues
integrated e- commerce and asset management Revenue from e-commerce
solutions for research enterprises and their transactions through the Sciquest
supplier partners worldwide website
Advertising revenues
Commissions received from auctions
2002 – 2003 Software, information and services company that License fee
provides solutions to enhance research operations Subscription fee
for pharmaceutical, biotechnology and other Maintenance fees
research-based organizations. Fees from professional services
Advertising revenue
Table 2: Verticalnet
Year About the company Revenue model

1995-2000 Creator and operator of Vertical trade communities that Advertising revenues
acted as industry-specific comprehensive sources of Web site development fees
information, interaction and electronic commerce Sponsored newsletters
Virtual trade shows
Auctions
2001 Operates industry-specific e-marketplaces Software licensing
The firm offers software solutions to industry alliances, Professional services
independent net market makers and enterprises Advertising revenues
Web site development fees
Auctions
2002 - 2003 Provider of Collaborative Supply Chain solutions License fee
allowing organizations to communicate, collaborate and Fees from professional services
conduct commerce more effectively across the extended Advertising revenue
supply chain
fee and fee from professional services. focus the viability of their business models.
Both these firms started as indepen- In the case of B2B marketplaces, the dy-
dent B2B marketplaces, and after continu- namic nature of the environments in which
ous adaptation over the years, Verticalnet they operate makes transformation a key
has morphed into a Collaborative Supply research issue. Thus, analysis of the trans-
Chain solutions provider. Sciquest has formation paths chosen by the market-
emerged into a software, information and places would offer us useful insights. Study-
services company. A similar trend is wit- ing the adaptive strategies of firms that op-
nessed in the case of many of the B2B erated in such environments would improve
marketplaces. Either the marketplaces suc- our understanding of other current/future
cessfully adapted into new forms or they firms operating in similar environments. The
closed down. After the fall of the paper aims to understand the adaptive strat-
NASDAQ in April 2000, the marketplaces egies of B2B marketplaces in terms of their
were faced with one of three options: adapt products/service class evolution. Specifi-
and survive on their own revenues, sell out, cally the objectives of the study are:
or go bankrupt. An increasing number of
marketplaces have since adapted them- 1. Understand the adaptive strategies of
selves beyond market making, merged with B2B marketplaces and identify the
other marketplaces, have been acquired or stages in the evolution
exited the market. According to industry 2. Analyse the product/service class evo-
sources (mySupplyChain, 2001), about 400 lution of B2B marketplaces
marketplaces have closed down or been 3. Understand the survival strategies of
acquired by others. The closure of many B2B marketplaces
independent B2B marketplaces brings into The paper is organized into four sec-
tions. In the first section, we describe the of alliances among firms.

theoretical bases we use to analyse firm Organizations operating in highly com-
adaptation. In the second section, we ex- petitive environments rely on strategies that
plain the research design and methodology are more adaptive (Davis et al., 1991;
adopted by us. The third section will de- Jennings and Seaman, 1994). The success
scribe the three case studies. The last sec- of a business is a function of its appropri-
tion draws some conclusions and presents ate and timely adaptation over time. If we
guidelines for further research. take adaptation of organizations along a
continuum, we can see that at one end or-
THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES ganizations can maintain an external focus,
with an accompanying ability to adapt to
Firms operating in high-velocity envi- market change, but at a significant cost.
ronments exhibit behavior that differs sig- At the other end, organizations can focus
nificantly from those operating in static on a narrowly defined product-market.
environments (Thomas, 1996). In high ve- These organizations can focus internally,
locity environments, firm strategies are of- but with an accompanying risk of failing to
ten more concerned with change adapt when market changes occur. Adap-
(Eisenhardt & Brown, 1997, 1999), speed tation involves changes in strategic behav-
(Eisenhardt, 1989; Eisenhardt & Tabrizi, ior to improve competitive posture and
1995) and flexibility (D’Aveni, 1994). How- achieve better fit between the organization
ever we have very limited understanding and its environment. This may involve com-
of adaptive strategies of Internet-based prehensive, continuous changes in products,
businesses that operated in such environ- services, resources, capabilities, and exter-
ments. This paper is an attempt to bridge nal linkages through which firms seek to
this gap in literature. regenerate competitive advantage. Adap-
Eisenhardt and Bourgeois (1988) de- tation can be conceptualized in terms of a
fine high-velocity environments as those number of dimensions affecting the busi-
exhibiting rapid and discontinuous change ness, such as products or services offered,
in four domains. The domains are demand, customer profile, marketing, distribution,
competition, technology, and regulation. personnel, financial and physical facility
B2B marketplaces have experienced rapid requirements (Morris et al, 1999). Further,
changes in all four categories and hence it typically entails incremental, continued
they can be classified as operating in high change as opposed to dramatic or discon-
velocity environments. The tenets of high tinuous change, leading to major transfor-
velocity environments are similar to the mation of an organization.
concept of hypercompetition (D’Aveni, Research on organization adaptation
1994). Firms competing in hyper-competi- has tended to emphasize the adaptive ca-
tive environments exhibit behavior that dif- pacity of firms, or the extent to which par-
fers significantly from behavior in more ticular strategies reflect more or less abil-
static environments (Thomas, 1996). Ac- ity to adapt. Adaptation strategy concerns
cording to D’Aveni the key drivers for a specific ways in which the firm makes ad-
shift towards hypercompetition are con- justments, as it seeks to survive and capi-
sumer demand, the knowledge base of talize on external circumstances. Such ad-
firms and associated workers, declining justments can be made in a variety of prod-
entry barriers, and the increasing frequency uct, market and resource management ar-
eas (Ginsberg, 1988; Snow and Hrebiniak, (1994), sample selection should be dictated
1980) such as a broader product mix, new by replication logic instead of a statistical
product development, exploration of new one. Each case was considered as an ex-
markets and market segments, speed of periment in itself, subsequent sites being
response, outsourcing and resource lever- used to either confirm or refute previous
aging, formation of strategic alliances, etc. findings. According to Eisenhardt, cases
Chakravarthy (1982) argues that organi- may be chosen to replicate previous cases
zations survive by pursuing high, medium or extend emergent theory, or they may be
or low levels of adaptation, depending on chosen to fill theoretical categories and pro-
their defined market niche. Determining the vide examples of polar types (1989). A
total amount of adaptation in a firm would group of potential B2B marketplaces was
require that one combines the amount of first identified.
change that occurs in the various product, The following criteria were used to
market and resource management activi- choose firms for case study:
ties of the firm over time (Morris and Zahra,
2000). • Firm is a market maker
Key characteristics of the Internet, • Operate in the business-to-business
such as interconnectivity and network ex- marketplace
ternalities, make it necessary for Internet • Use the Internet as a key mode of de-
based firms to adopt inherently dynamic livery of their services
strategies, including product versioning,
rapid product development, direct relation- Firms were picked one at a time,
ships with users and frequent partnering starting with those that seemed to best meet
(Shapiro & Varian, 1999). To succeed over the selection criteria. Based on the above
the long haul, firms have to periodically re- criteria, three Indian firms were chosen for
orient themselves by adopting new strate- the case study research (see Table 3 for a
gies and structures that are necessary to brief description of the firms). These firms
accommodate changing environmental con- were some of the leading business-to-busi-
ditions. ness marketplaces in India. In order to keep
the project’s cost within reasonable limits,
RESEARCH DESIGN AND we selected B2B marketplaces in India.
METHODOLOGY The multi-case design was adopted to al-
low for replication logic. The cases were
The industry-level cross-sectional treated as experiments, each case serving
studies are not very helpful in capturing the to confirm or reject the inferences drawn
evolution of Internet-based businesses, as from the previous ones (Yin, 1984).
they would fail to capture how over time Data was collected through semi-
they have adapted and evolved. To under- structured interviews with the CEOs, CIOs,
stand this, we need to look inside firms to CFOs, Vice Presidents, Assistant Vice
understand evolution at the organizational Presidents, Technical heads as well as the
level. The case methodology was chosen, Managers of the firms. We also conducted
as the purpose of this work was explor- interviews with independent industry ex-
atory. We chose purposeful sampling, that perts. Interviews lasted from one to four
is, selecting a sample from which the maxi- hours. We conducted 22 unstructured and
mum can be learned. According to Yin semi-structured interviews during 2001-
Table 3: Brief Description of the Cases
Firm Business Launched in Target industry Current Products/services

description segment Ownership
Firm 1 Business-to- August 1999 Across industries Fully owned subsidiary Forward and reverse
business (b2b) of leading two-wheeler auctions. Comprehensive
auction site manufacturer in India listing and matchmaking
facility.
Firm 2 E-Procurement September Across industries Owned and operated by Forward/reverse auctions,
service provider 2000 a leading Indian supplier/price discovery,
software service catalogues, online
provider negotiations, e-procurement
consulting.
Firm 3 Value-added August 1999 Across industries Owned by a leading Procurement and disposal of
hosted services engineering and assets, supply chain
provider manufacturing firm management, dynamic
catalogue management
services
2002. The interview guideline was used to tions, strategies for its development, expec-
ensure that the focus areas of our research tations concerning its impact, perceived
were discussed during the interviews. A changes in the business, business models
similar number of interviews were con- and organization, perceived success and
ducted with personnel with same/equiva- critical success factors, and future plans.
lent designations to ensure uniformity of The following are some sample ques-
data sources. Table 4 lists the personnel tions from the interview guide:
interviewed in the three firms. Our inter-
views focused on how the B2B market- 1. What are the key products/services of-
places have adapted and evolved. The case fered by you across the years? What
interpretations are based on the interviews, are the reasons for offering these prod-
secondary data sources such as press re- ucts/services?
ports, company releases, business plan and 2. Is your firm in the aggregation stage?
analyst reports. What are the aggregation services on
An interview guide was used to avoid offer and how have they changed over
losing focus and to ensure that all relevant the years and why?
questions were asked. The interview guide- 3. What caused the firm to adapt through
line had 15 questions and the questions were the various stages? Are they internal
both closed and open-ended. Respondents factors or was the adaptation forced due
were thus given the opportunity to express to the market characteristics?
their thoughts on the topic of interest as 4. Are these variables a good depiction of
freely as possible. The interview guideline firm adaptation?
concerned the history and implementation
of eCommerce in the respective organiza- The first question was aimed at un-
Table 4: List of personnel interviewed in the three firms
Firm CEO COO CIO CFO Vice President Assistant Vice Technical Managers
President Head
Firm 1 X X X X X X X X
Firm 2 X X X X X X X -
Firm 3 X X X X X X X -
derstanding the product/service class evo- work (predicted pattern). We also used the
lution of B2B marketplaces. The objective explanation-building mode of analysis. Ex-
of the second question was to understand ternal validity was ensured by iteratively
the stages of evolution. Questions three and comparing and contrasting the firms for
four aimed to understand the adaptive strat- similarities (literal replication) or differ-
egies of B2B marketplaces. In all cases, ences (theoretical replication). Following
the respondents allowed the tape record- such replication logic both strengthens and
ing of the interview. Notes were reviewed broadens analytical generalizations.
the same day or the day after the inter- We started data analysis with an in-
view, and the within-case analysis was per- depth study of each individual site, and this
formed as soon as possible, while the in- first step is called within-case analysis. This
formation concerning the case was still is helpful to develop an in-depth under-
fresh in the mind of the researcher. Even standing of each case before moving on to
when the interviews were taped, the in- the next level of analysis. This entails sift-
vestigator tried to do the individual case ing through all the data, discarding what-
analysis shortly after meeting with the re- ever is irrelevant and bringing together what
spondents. Tapes were listened to and notes seems most important. The idea is to allow
were taken. the most significant observations to emerge
To enhance the quality of our re- from all data gathered in the field, while
search design, several of the methods rec- reducing the volume of data. To facilitate
ommended by Yin (1994) for case studies the cross-case analyses, all three cases
were used. We collected data from more were written in the same format: a brief
than one member of each respondent firm, introduction describing the organization and
giving us greater confidence in the mea- its business environment; a detailed de-
sures of the constructs. We also obtained scription of the adaptation and evolution of
information about the firms from consult- the firm since inception, analysis of each
ants, analyst reports, business magazines of the product/service classes, external
and promotional material, thereby achiev- networks and the effect of industry dyna-
ing triangulation of sources and methods mism on the variables. One section was
(Patton, 1999). Internal validity checks were kept open for any variables that may
conducted using the pattern-matching mode emerge from the field. The second step of
of analysis after having performed the the analysis consisted of a cross-case
cross-case search for patterns. As a form search for patterns. The cross-case search
of theoretical validation, the emerging for patterns was executed along the same
framework (empirically based pattern) was dimensions as mentioned in the within-case
compared to the initial theoretical frame- analysis. A third level of analysis was used
Figure 1: Stages of transformation
Complementary
assets
Transactions Integration
Aggregation and
Collaboration
Environmental Stages of
Characteristics Adaptation
to explain the phenomenon by stipulating a ber of transactions. The integration stage

set of possible causal links about it (Yin, corresponds to the consolidation stage, as
1994). Yin (1994) suggests beginning such it requires attaining maturity in both the
an analysis by taking the data collected nature and the process of service delivery
from a first case to build a logical sequence undertaken by the firm.
of events explaining the case outcomes.
The hypothesized set of events was then Aggregation
verified in a second case and if it is con-
firmed, we proceed with the third case. If In the formative period, the B2B mar-
at any point in the process the hypothesized ketplaces were acting as aggregators. They
explanation did not hold, an alternative ex- were offering catalogues detailing the prod-
planation was developed and verified again uct listings. Table 5 lists the products/ser-
until one holds good for all the cases. vices offered by the three B2B market-
places during this stage. This stage wit-
RESULTS nessed intense competition among the vari-
ous B2B marketplaces, as the entry bar-
The case analysis reveals that B2B rier was very low. Further, all the players
marketplaces transformed and evolved in were offering similar services such as static
response to a highly dynamic environment. product listings and directory services. Thus
Based on the type of products/services of- there was very little differentiation among
fered by the B2B marketplaces across the the various B2B marketplaces. At this
three stages, we identified three stages of stage, the main purpose of B2B market-
evolution: aggregation stage, transactions places was to reduce transaction costs,
stage and integration and collaboration bring together buyers and sellers as well
stage (see Figure 1 for the stages of trans- as facilitate price discovery.
formation). The aggregation stage is the All three firms evolved in a similar
formative stage of the firm. The transac- direction, providing similar services with no
tion stage corresponds to the expansion dynamic transactions. The firms were tar-
stage, as it involves expanding the firm’s geting a particular industry segment. Firm
operations, revenues, as well as the num- 1 focused on engineering items, Firm 2 tar-
Table 5: Products/ services offered by the B2B marketplaces during the first stage
Firm 1 Firm 2 Firm 3

Aggregation Product Search, Firm 2 skipped the first stage Catalogue, Directories
Catalogue, Directories as the firm was formed during
late 2000
geted the IT industry and Firm 3 focused engines. All three firms were similar in their
on MRO (Maintenance, Repair and Oper- approach towards brand building.
ating supplies) items. The similarities in the The most important characteristics of
services offered by the B2B marketplaces this stage were low transaction volume and
in this stage, such as static product listings the inability of the B2B marketplaces to
and directory services, resulted in these achieve critical mass of transactions. This
services being perceived as a commodity. was caused by low industry participation
As all the B2B marketplaces were offer- in the B2B marketplaces. To increase the
ing identical services, there was very little number of transactions, Firm 3 even di-
differentiation among them. They also vested a minority stake to four engineering
faced problems in terms of their inability to industry players thereby ensuring more in-
achieve the critical mass of transactions dustry participation. During this stage, the
(value of transaction required to achieve B2B marketplaces started offering a num-
break-even). Hence, the B2B market- ber of Dynamic Transaction services. Firm
places had to find new sources of com- 1 started offering a bundle of services
petitive advantage by re-examining their which comprised dynamic forward and re-
services. This resulted in them building reverse auctions, logistics, appraisal, valua-
sources and capabilities to offer transaction services, RFQ (Request for Quotation)
tions and move to the next stage of their and industry news. Table 6 lists the prod-
evolution. ucts/services offered by the three B2B
marketplaces during this stage. The evi-
Transactions dence presented in Table 6 indicates that
all the three B2B marketplaces evolved in
similar directions by adding new and inno-
B2B marketplaces were exploring a
vative transactions and services.
new way of delivering the services, and
steps were taken to enter into alliances to Firm 2 was offering dynamic forward
access complementary assets. The three and reverse auctions, payment services,
B2B marketplaces continued to invest sub- valuation services, industry news and mar-
stantial amounts in marketing and promo- ket analysis and reports. Firm 3 was offer-
tional activities. At this stage Firm 1 spent ing services such as auctions, appraisal,
close to 60% of its total expenses towards valuation and market analysis and reports.
marketing and promotional activities. The Firm 3 also introduced innovative services
B2B marketplaces focused on building their such as the Global TIO auction services.
domain name as a brand and used print However, the most drastic shift in focus
advertisements, hoardings as well as ad- was witnessed in the case of Firm 2, which
vertisements in various Internet search evolved from an online marketplace to an
Table 6: Products/services offered by the B2B marketplaces during the second stage

Transactions Product Search, RFP/RFQ, Catalogue Catalogue
Catalogue, Auction (Public), Auction (Public) Auction (Public)
Auction (Private), Exchange Auction (Private) Auction (Private)
Exchange Exchange
Value Added Services Logistics, Escrow, Payment, Industry Logistics, Escrow,
(VAS) Appraisal, Valuation, News, Market analysis Appraisal, Valuation,
Industry news, Market and reports Industry news, Market
Analysis and reports Analysis and reports
eProcurement service provider, providing stage, there was very little differentiation
reverse and forward auction services, among the B2B marketplaces, as most of
eProcurement consultancy, setting up vir- them started offering transactions and VAS.
tual private marketplaces and licensing of The industry continued to witness a large
their indigenously developed procurement number of new entrants. As all the B2B
software. marketplaces were offering identical ser-
The B2B marketplaces entered into vices, there was very little differentiation
alliances with partner firms to offer value- among them. For some B2B marketplaces
added services (VAS). Value-added ser- such as Firm 1 and Firm 3, the problems
vices are defined as services, which supple- were accentuated by their inability to
ment the actual transaction, cataloguing and achieve the critical mass of transactions.
search capability. These include financial All these conditions resulted in the B2B
services, logistics services, analytics, in- marketplaces losing their competitive ad-
spection and settlement of disputes. The vantage. This made it imperative for the
B2B marketplaces considered logistics ser- B2B marketplaces to attract long-term in-
vices and financial settlement as two key dustry participation, which was not possible
areas of differentiation. This can be seen only through dynamic transactions, as in
in the case of Firm 2, which entered into many cases the average transaction fee
alliances with banks to offer financial settle- ranged between 2-5% of the value of the
ment services, and with rating service pro- transaction. As compared to transaction
viders to offer rating and verification ser- fee based business models, business mod-
vices. Firm 2 also entered into alliances with els based on license fee became more at-
various content providers. Firm 1 had alli- tractive to the B2B marketplaces as it en-
ances with logistics firms, consulting and sured minimum revenue. Moreover, the
appraisal service providers. Firm 3 had al- customers were demanding integration with
liances with verification and dispute settle- the entire supply chain rather than just pro-
ment agencies, rating service providers, curement or disposal of assets, which was
logistics service providers and content pro- possible only by integrating the solutions of
viders. Firm 3 had also entered into an alli- the B2B marketplace with the processes
ance with another B2B marketplace. of their customers. This triggered the next
However, similar to the previous stage in the evolution of B2B marketplaces
wherein they started offering integration during this stage. From Table 7, we can
and collaboration services. infer that the three B2B marketplaces were
integrating their products/services with
Integration and Collaboration those of their customers. In Stages 2 and
3, long-term contracting and service deliv-
Between Stages 2 and 3, a major ery became salient, in contrast to the pre-
punctuated shift happened in the form of vious focus on sales and marketing. The
the crash of B2B company stocks. This knowledge base in the B2B marketplaces
was accompanied by the non-availability went through many changes due to the lay-
of venture capital funding. As most of the offs, as most of the firms lost about a quar-
B2B marketplaces at this stage were not ter of their employees. At his stage, the
generating enough revenues to sustain their license fee was the primary source of rev-
operations, they were putting on hold their enue for B2B marketplaces, and second-
expansion plans and were restructuring, ary sources of revenue were transaction
downsizing and retrenching. In all the com- fee as well as non-transactional usage fees
panies, a number of people were laid off, such as tracking fee, listing fee, etc.
and in many cases the firms changed their Integration of their products and ser-
products/services, revenue model, mission vices with their customers assured the B2B
statements etc. For example, Firm 2 exited marketplaces of regular revenues in the
its e-selling business and started to focus form of license fees. Integration with cor-
only on e-procurement. In order to improve porate systems is achieved through enter-
the margins from e-Procurement services prise application integration methods. Typi-
such as auctions, reverse auctions, cata- cally, a common metadata repository main-
logues, etc., the firm started offering tains process and data maps for translating
consultancy services. This included the data, and a message broker routes the
consultancy in strategic sourcing, which is data to the right application. Integration also
the step before e-procurement and supplier involves modeling, automating, and integrat-
relationship management (SRM), which is ing business processes and trading relation-
the step after procurement. Firm 3 evolved ships between partners. Integration of in-
from a marketplace to a value-added ap- formation refers to the sharing of informa-
plication service provider (ASP) and was tion among participants of the B2B mar-
offering an integrated e-business solution ketplace such as buyers and suppliers. This
suite for the manufacturing sector compris- includes data such as inventory data, de-
ing of e-procurement, supply chain man- mand data, capacity plans, production
agement, etc. schedules, promotion plans, and shipment
Table 7 lists the products/services schedules. B2B marketplaces at this stage
offered by the three B2B marketplaces also facilitated collaborative activities such
Table 7: Products/services offered by the B2B marketplaces during the third stage
Integration and Private exchange Catalogue integration, Dynamic catalogue management
Collaboration private exchange, e- services, e-sourcing, Supply chain
procurement consulting, management
services
as joint design and execution plans for prod- regenerates competitive advantage through
uct introduction, demand forecasting and continuous redefinition of the products and
replenishment. They also facilitated services, and changes in the resources and
workflow coordination, which refers to capabilities. In the aggregation stage the
streamlined and automated workflow ac- focus of the B2B marketplaces was to bring
tivities between supply chain partners. together buyers and sellers over a com-
To facilitate integration and collabo- mon platform. In the transactions stage, the
ration, the B2B marketplaces were build- focus of the B2B marketplaces was to re-
ing their technological capabilities such as duce search and transaction costs as well
data mapping repositories, including XML as offer VAS. In the integration and col-
(Extended Markup Language) document laboration stage, the focus of the B2B mar-
exchange formats and trading partner ketplaces was to design and implement
agreements, which allowed the customers interorganisational processes. Porter (1985)
to switch from one market to the other at hypothesized a tendency for firms to un-
any time. This was important as the cus- bundle complementary products over the
tomers may not find the relevant buyers or course of the industry life cycle. In the case
sellers in one particular marketplace. of B2B marketplaces, we find that the re-
Therefore, B2B marketplaces such as Firm verse is true. In B2B marketplaces, as we
3 entered into partnerships with B2B mar- move along their industry life cycle, there
ketplaces from other countries such as is an increasing tendency to bundle their
GoIndustry. Firm 3 was building its core products/services along with complemen-
strengths such as its inventory of modular tary products/services.
functional components, domain specialists
and technical resources. This was supple- Discussion and Implications
mented by managerial capabilities such as
end-to-end consulting. What distinguishes This research involved an empirical
the integration stage of B2B marketplaces examination of the evolution of B2B mar-
is their ability to achieve sustained com- ketplaces in terms of their product and ser-
petitive advantage by exploiting stage 1 and vice evolution. Our study makes several
stage 2 activities. The stage 2 activities in- important contributions to the literature on
volved the ability to offer stand-alone dy- B2B marketplaces in general and evolu-
namic transactions and leveraging the tionary strategies in emergent stages of the
complementary assets of partners. How- industry in particular. Our results allow for
ever, stage 3 activities involved the ability a complete understanding of the stages of
to create inter-organizational processes. evolution of B2B marketplaces. The focus
From the results, we can see that firms of B2B marketplaces across the world was
rely on continuous adaptation to regener- to achieve a critical mass of transactions
ate competitive advantage under conditions by targeting small and medium-sized buy-
of rapid change (see Table 8 for the evolu- ers and sellers. They aimed to facilitate this
tion of firm characteristics across stages). by providing a platform for displaying prod-
As firms adapt and evolve into new forms, uct offerings and enabling price competi-
they need to regenerate competitive advan- tion. B2B marketplaces across the world
tage relative to the new competitors they failed mainly due to the lack of supplier and
encounter in these domains. This triggers buyer participation. This occurred because
the adaptation process again. Adaptation of the following reasons:
Table 8: Evolution of firm characteristics

Aggregation Dynamic Transactions and VAS Integration and Collaboration
(1999-2000) (2000-2001) (2002 onwards)
Products/Services Static listings, directories Auctions, reverse auctions, logistics, Supply chain integration,
escrow, etc. collaborative planning,
forecasting
Strategic Focus Match making Match making, reducing transaction Interorganisational processes
costs
Revenue model Listing fee Listing fee, transaction fee, fee for License fee, listing fee,
VAS transaction fee, fee for VAS
Competitors Online and physical Brick and mortar auction houses, Software service providers,
directories, other B2B other B2B marketplaces consulting firms, other B2B
marketplaces marketplaces
Sources of Competitive First mover advantage, First mover advantage, network Interorganisational processes,
advantage network externalities externalities, trust, brand, reputation, lock-in, network externalities,
complementarity among internal and trust, brand, reputation
external resources, low transaction
and search costs
Supplier enablement and partici- Technology adoption–The suppli-

pation–Supplier enablement was a key is- ers were reluctant to adopt the new tech-
sue and often involved complex procedures nology, as participation in marketplaces in-
as well as high upfront costs. The suppli- volved issues related to the electronic for-
ers were required to make investments in matting of inventory records, learning new
software and/or hardware to get started. technology and making process changes.
Suppliers did not want to join a number of Price competition and
B2B marketplaces unless there is a clear commoditization–Suppliers were not com-
value proposition. Moreover, the price sav- fortable with pure price competition and
ings provide benefits for buyers, but there were wary of the fact that their products/
are no similar benefits for suppliers. services would be commoditised if they
Path dependency–The brick and compete solely based on price.
mortar companies had existing supplier All the above factors resulted in ne-
contracts and had spent many years de- gating the network effects and lesser value
veloping these partnerships. Hence, they for the customers. There were too many
were not willing to break away from their exchanges targeting too few participants.
existing network of relationships. The key reasons for the failure of the B2B
Asset specificity–The brick and marketplaces can be attributed to supplier
mortar companies had made considerable related issues such as enablement and par-
investments in building their network of ticipation, path dependency, asset specific-
contracts. Hence, they were not ready to ity, technology adoption, etc. The target
forego these investments. customers of B2B marketplaces were not
Partnerships and relationships– ready to embrace the new way of doing
They were also not open to the cultural transactions. Thus the B2B marketplaces
changes necessary to compete solely based were adapting and evolving their business
on price within an open marketplace, aban- models to meet the requirements of the
don important relationships, and adopt new market. In other words, the B2B market-
technology. places were operating in a high velocity
Privacy issues–There were privacy environment, whereas their customers
concerns as competitors were able to ac- were not moving fast and were slow to
cess the pricelists thereby escalating price respond to the changes.
competition resulting in reduced margins. Managers could gain from these re-
sults as it would help them to identify the Khandelwal (2002) emphasise that with
type of products/services to be offered. The the increasing globalization of business,
study also proposes that B2B marketplaces management of IT is becoming more com-
have survived by building stable plex. They posit that there are significant
interorganisational processes. This builds differences in the IT management needs
a case for managers to invest in in different geographic regions. In this pa-
interorganisational information systems to per, we have not examined the framework
hedge some of the risks posed by high ve- in terms of multiple contexts. Examining
locity environments. Managers could use the influence of structural conditions on the
the results to understand the role of comple- adaptation of firms in high-velocity envi-
mentary assets in firm adaptation. This pa- ronments is a possible area for future re-
per thus offers valuable insights about the search.
influence of complementary assets in the The study does not link adaptation of
evolutionary stages of firms. Increased fo- firms with their financial performance, as
cus on integration required firms to develop we were not able to access the financial
products/services that were compatible performance measures of these firms. By
with multiple standards and solutions. Thus, limiting our research to three case studies,
system integration rather than isolated pro- we are not able to generalize our findings.
cesses became critical. The multi-stage Despite these limitations, our study devel-
model of firm adaptation could act as a ops key constructs that can advance un-
useful tool by managers. The model could derstanding and stimulate research on the
help them identify the type of resources evolution of firms in highly dynamic envi-
and capabilities, which needs to be built in ronments.
high velocity environments.
CONCLUSION
Limitations
This research involved an empirical
Studying the adaptation of firms in examination of the adaptation of B2B mar-
high velocity environments poses a num- ketplaces. The research argues that we
ber of challenges. The case studies, used need to have a comprehensive understand-
to identify and understand the variables ing of the factors that could influence the
were limited to firms in India. Markus and adaptation of firms, including complemen-
Soh (2002) argue that structural conditions tary resources at the emergent stage of
play a key role in business-to-business ac- industries. This research contributes to a
tivity. These include physical, social and growing body of research, seeking to un-
economic arrangements that shape e-com- derstand the determinants of organizational
merce business models and influence indi- ability to adapt and gain competitive ad-
vidual and organizational use of the vantage in new competitive and high-ve-
Internet. They posit that structural condi- locity environments. The framework aims
tions differ from country to country and to capture the evolution and adaptation of
even from location to location within a coun- B2B marketplaces. The link between an
try. Therefore, valid explanations of geo- attribute and its adaptive implications can
graphical differences in e-commerce ac- be studied by analyzing the organization’s
tivity require a careful assessment of rel- history and the effect of the attribute. As
evant structural factors. Gottschalk and adaptation is dynamic and cumulative, the
effect of an attribute or a combination of Electronic Intermediaries. International

attributes on adaptation would be felt in the Journal of Electronic Commerce, 1(3), 7-
future. These aspects suggest that sum- 20.
ming up the history of the organization of- Bakos, Y. (1991). A Strategic Analy-
fers a means of studying the same. The sis of Electronic Marketplaces. MIS Quar-
model presented in this paper captures the terly, 15(3), 295-310.
paths of adaptation of B2B marketplaces Bakos, Y. (1997). Reducing Buyer
in terms of its products/services as well as Search Costs: Implications for Electronic
the industry dynamism. The research indi- Marketplaces. Management Science,
cates that B2B marketplaces pass through 43(12), 1676-1692.
three stages, which correspond to the three Business Week (2003). The e-biz sur-
stages in their products/service class evo- prise. (May 12), 44-52.
lution: aggregation, transactions and inte- Chakravarthy, B. S. (1982). Adapta-
gration. tion: A promising metaphor for strategic
A state of adaptation for a business management. Academy of Management
organization is one in which it can survive Review, 7, 35-44.
the conditions of the environment. The Davis, D., Morris, M., & Allen, J.
higher the environmental complexity that (1991). Perceived environmental turbu-
can be handled by the firm, the better are lence and its effect on selected entrepre-
the chances of its long-term survival and neurship, marketing, and organizational
thus higher the level of its adaptation. It is characteristics in industrial firms. Journal
not necessary that all B2B marketplaces of the Academy of Marketing Science,
must pass through all stages or must pass 19, 43-51.
through the stages one at a time. Many D’Aveni, R. A. (1994).
firms do not reach stage 3 or even stage 2, Hypercompetition: Managing the dy-
and most firms contain activities that are namics of strategic maneuvering. New
at more than one stage. In order to survive York: Free Press.
in the long run, B2B marketplaces have to Eisenhardt, K. M. (1989). Making
reach the integration stage. Although the fast strategic decisions in high-velocity en-
B2B marketplaces in the transaction stage vironments. Academy of Management
have marginal competitive advantage, they Journal, 32(3), 543-576.
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places in the integration stage minimize en- making in high-velocity environments.
vironmental uncertainty by creating Academy of Management Journal, 31(4),
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Information Rules: A Strategic Guide to
Jai Ganesh is a Junior Research Associate with Infosys SET Labs. His research is
on emerging areas such as Web Services. Jai holds a PhD in Information Systems
from the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB). He is a graduate of
Nagpur University where he completed his MBA in Marketing. He earned a BSc in
Physics before that. His papers have been selected for leading peer-reviewed in-
ternational conferences such as ICIS, ICEC, ICEB etc. His papers have been pub-
lished by IIMB Management Review, World Markets Research Centre etc. He has
received a research grant from NS Raghavan – GIV Centre for Entrepreneurial
Learning. He is a reviewer for Journal of Electronic Commerce in Organizations,
International Journal of Electronic Business and conferences such as AMCIS and
ICIS. He has also consulted for software firms in Bangalore.
T.R. Madanmohan is an Associate Professor of Technology and Operations Man-

agement at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB). He also holds
an Adjunct Research Professor position at Eric Sprott School of Business, Carleton
University, Canada. He received a B.E in Civil Engineering from Gulbarga Uni-
versity, in 1985, and a Ph.D in Management Studies from the Indian Institute of
Science, Bangalore, in 1992. He subsequently worked at the Institute of Rural
Management, Anand and Management Develeopment Institute, Gurgaon, as As-
sistant professor. His teaching, training and research has been in the areas of e-
business, technology management, and service operations.
P.D. Jose is an Assistant Professor of Corporate Strategy & Policy at the Indian
Institute of Management Bangalore. Prof. Jose completed his PhD at IIM
Ahmedabad and his post-graduate work in Forestry Management (PGDFM) from
the Indian Institute of Forest Management (IIFM), Bhopal. He has done a BSc in
Physics before that. Prof. Jose is a recipient of the prestigious Fulbright Fellow-
ship for 1999-2000 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Kenan Flagler
Business School. He has been a faculty member at the Administrative Staff College
of India. He has written several academic papers and case studies in journals
such as Business Strategy and the Environment,and Journal of Long Range Plan-
ning.. He has consulted for several public sector organizations and governments.
He has also successfully completed projects for institutions such as The World
Bank, among others.
Sudhi Seshadri is a Professor of Marketing at the Indian Institute of Management

Bangalore (IIMB). He holds a PhD in Business Administration from the Pennsyl-
vania State University and a B.Tech in Electrical Engineering from the Indian
Institute of Technology. For over a decade, he has worked in India and abroad in
the areas of marketing management and marketing research. He has taught and
conducted research in three graduate business schools for over ten years in the
US and at IIMB. He has published more than a dozen refereed papers in leading
international management journals including Management Science, Marketing
Science, Managerial & Decision Economics, and Industrial Marketing Manage-
ment. He is on the editorial board of the Review of Marketing Science. Prof Seshadri
has consulted for the public sector and has technical marketing and sales experi-
ence with major multi-divisional engineering firms. He was also associated with
the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad as Associate Dean, Executive
Programmes.

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Journal of Global Information Management, 12(1), 41-59, Jan-Mar 2004 41

Adaptive Strategies of Firms in

Keywords: adaptation; high velocity environments; evolution; B2B marketplace; integra-

INTRODUCTION the failure of hundreds of B2B

we can trace it back to EDI (Electronic aggregation and disaggregation of informa-

Year About the company Revenue model

tions. In the first section, we describe the of alliances among firms.

Table 3: Brief Description of the Cases

Firm Business Launched in Target industry Current Products/services

Table 4: List of personnel interviewed in the three firms

Figure 1: Stages of transformation

to explain the phenomenon by stipulating a ber of transactions. The integration stage

Firm 1 Firm 2 Firm 3

Firm 1 Firm 2 Firm 3

Table 8: Evolution of firm characteristics

Supplier enablement and partici- Technology adoption–The suppli-

effect of an attribute or a combination of Electronic Intermediaries. International

Review, 76(2), 59-69. the life-cycle construct: a taxonomic study

1189-1208. the Network Economy. Boston, Mass:

T.R. Madanmohan is an Associate Professor of Technology and Operations Man-

Sudhi Seshadri is a Professor of Marketing at the Indian Institute of Management

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