Impressive records Customer Focused Tech tools of the trade Getting thin The road ahead Words of wisdom on Web integration Web work, year by year

In its annual "Marketing to Life Scientists" study published in July 2003, market research firm BioInformatics notes that the Web is the No. 1 medium for new product information, eclipsing catalogs, print ads and trade shows. "Prior to 1997, the same survey didn't even include the Web as an option," says Brad Johnson, director of e-business for Sigma-Aldrich, a St. Louis chemical company that sells to life scientists and puts a lot of stock in the study.

In the mid- to late 1990s, Sigma-Aldrich was among the companies getting business-to-business Web efforts off the ground, making decisions on architectures and vendors that it couldn't be sure would last for the long term. But it became well known in the chemical industry for its early e-commerce efforts, just as Ford Motor Credit did in the automotive financing business and Staples in the retail world. Sigma-Aldrich and Ford Credit, in fact, are past winners of our E-comm Innovator Award, while Staples has shared its experiences with us throughout the years.

"Back in 1998 or '99, there were no real market leaders in this space," says Larry Blazevich, CIO at Sigma-Aldrich. "Everybody was lined up at the starting gate, and the horse race was on."

Impressive records

In 2003, the race is far from over, but it's lots easier to handicap. Market leaders have emerged in the vendor and user communities. Sigma-Aldrich's Web site, for example, was named best in its class worldwide in the July BioInformatics study. The company's sales numbers seem to indicate the study is dead on, with e-business sales increasing from $4 million in 1998 to a projected $200 million in 2003. It even buried at least a couple of dot-com competitors, the marketplace companies Chemdex (belly up in early 2001) and SciQuest (now operating as an IT product and service provider).

Johnson and Blazevich say their site has evolved in a number of ways over the years. One is business-to-business integration. After successfully integrating its Web site with a new SAP ERP system to get its own house in order, Sigma-Aldrich is doing much the same with its customers. It is integrating the site with its procurement systems. Another focus is on providing useful content by enhancing the amount and type of information available on the site. A third area is globalization, so the site can be relevant to customers in each of the 160 countries in which it conducts business, yet still maintain overall consistency.