According to John Ferreira, co-leader of Deloitte Consulting's B2B Practice, It is true that none of the public, many-to-many exchanges have truly succeeded in creating value for their participants. However, we believe the private network model the one-to-many exchange is gaining broad acceptance for driving collaborative commerce.
Although some thought otherwise, the so-called public exchanges were never in a position to solve all collaborative commerce issues. says Ferreira. Many are still well positioned to solve those types of issues where the muscle of the industry is needed, such as establishing industry standards and common, core business process. However, if a company is interested in establishing real competitive advantage, it cannot and will not do this in a public exchange with its competitors. Our work with clients indicates that companies see definite value in continuing to invest in their private-network, collaborative commerce initiatives.
Ferreira says firms are banking on private verticals because they deliver the most competitive advantage to businesses that establish them with their trading partners, and provide the fastest route to measurable Return on Investment (ROI). He cites the value that GE, Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Cisco Systems and others have gained from their private vertical networks.