Long time ago (…), when I was still heading Eutilia NV, I got a call from Anne Engström and Esmail Salehi-Sangari. They were observing that ” While large capital investments were made in numerous B2B e-marketplace initiatives, a significant number of these firms ended up going bankrupt. Today, many e-marketplaces are still struggling to survive and are trying to understand the characteristics of viable business models and strategies for becoming successful. Research within this field is scarce and provides only fragmented insights into the area.” Consequently they were investigating “holistically how the business performance of a B2B e-marketplace can be analyzed” and looking after my perspective concerning this topic they choose for their doctoral thesis. Here is the outcome, an impressive 300 page document reviewing existing literature and analysing 6 B2B eMarketplaces, their strategic position, their critical success/failure factors, their challenges, the key components of their business model, as well as emerging trends. Bottom line, Anne and Esmail unveiled their key findings and conclusion. Definitly a reference.
Below is a table extracted from the Thesis, underlining critical success and critical failure factors :
