Internet, Internationalisation and Customer Value Creation - The Case of Medical Information On the Internet
Introduction
During the late 1990s, when the Internet became widely used and accessible, it was something like a Klondike period for web-based business. There was an entrepreneurial spirit to question much of the established business and industry logic made possible by the technology and a rich supply of venture capital. Many new business ventures were launched aimed at selling and supporting software, hardware, infrastructure and service providing for the operation and utilisation of the Internet itself. New companies, initially and later also the established and traditional companies, were experimenting with the electronic business, as attempts to use the Internet as a channel for distribution of products, as a new channel for market communication and reaching out to new markets. Since the digital economy was about to develop there was an idea that there was only room for one industry-leader in each industry. The concepts of positive feed-back and the winner takes it all (see, e.g. Shapiro & Varian, 1999) pushed many of the ventures to aim at several national markets, and even the world-market, already from the beginning. Hence, the business concepts at the time favoured an international launch. We also witnessed a type of business that combined several offers and value propositions into a package made accessible on the Internet, at times the businesses also sought revenues from a variety of sources.
These businesses were mushrooming in almost any sector and they all signalled a revolutionary spirit to the established industry and way of doing business. One of the more successful examples of a consumer-oriented electronic marketplace is E-bay, ...