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Agribusiness Leaders Look at E-Commerce

Sixteen agribusiness CEOs as well as other agriculture experts gathered August 7 on campus for "E-Commerce for Agribusiness," a day-long roundtable discussion about the enormous potential of business-to-business e-commerce.

While the public is familiar with online business-to-consumer transactions, they are less familiar with the size and scope of business-to-business, or B2B transactions. B2B e-commerce accounts for 90 percent of e-business, and experts predict the value of B2B will reach $2.8 trillion by 2003.

"The roundtable discussions focused on the current state of e-commerce technology and its future for agriculture, which is considerable," said Lal Singh, agribusiness professor in CSU, Chico's College of Agriculture. "We wanted to help agribusiness realize that B2B is a trillion-dollar opportunity they cannot afford to ignore."

Heikki Rinne, dean of the College of Business and a founding member of E-Fruit before joining CSU, Chico, talked about the need for models. "Current models of best practices in B2B are still to be defined," he said. "There are multiple dot-com business sites, but they do not clearly define the model for B2B. Real models are only as good as real solutions, and solutions are only as good as the creators of those solutions. Good creators are needed from all avenues to define a model."

Rinne went on to discuss the potential for "shake-out," the term for winnowing out, through consolidations, growth, and dropouts, the many businesses that don't make it from the relatively few that do. He referred to the auto industry in the 1930s that had 502 car manufacturers; today there are three.

Sessions included topics such as B2B planning, financing, and technology. Among the session leaders were Judd Carter, president of Lindsey Olive Co.; Donald Wallrich, regional vice president of Bank of America; Glen Lewis, western region procurement manager of Del Monte Corp.; and Gordon Hunt, president of E-Fruit International.

The roundtable discussion is part one of the three-phase Agricultural E-Commerce Project conducted jointly by CSU, Chico's College of Agriculture and College of Business. The $210,000 project is financed by a grant from the state Agriculture Research Initiative and E-Fruit.

Phase one of the Agricultural E-Commerce Project concerns investigating current models for B2B e-commerce as they relate to agriculture. Phase two will develop a prototype e-business model based on phase one research results. Phase three will implement the e-business model for agricultural products.

Professor Singh is the project director. Business professors Ray Boykin, Susan Gardner, and Kent Sandoe serve as co-principal investigators. Agriculture professor Hank Wallace and business professor Shektar Misra are research associates.

University administrators who addressed the roundtable participants include President Manuel A. Esteban, Provost Scott McNall, College of Business Dean Heikki Rinne, and College of Agriculture Dean Charles Crabb. -- JW/CL