Business on the Net

CYBERPOWER FOR BUSINESS: Walter H. Bock and Jeff Senne; EastWest Books (Madras) Pvt. Ltd., 62-A, Ormes Road, Kilpauk, Chennai- 600010. Rs. 150.

WHAT DO you get when an expert on online services, collaborates with a corporate trainer who specialises in educating higher management? When they are Bock and Senne, you get a slim readable-at-one-go book, about the Internet, for executives who are too busy to absorb a lot of technical detail. What they want is a guide to find how the Internet can enhance their business and enable them to ride the new e-wave, rather than be swamped by it.

This is not per se,a book about e-commerce. Indeed it ends with a chapter on ``How to build your company's website'' - which is the starting point of doing business on the Web. But the authors suggest a dozen different ways by which small and big businesses can profitably exploit Internet for productivity.

Even a simple tool like e-mail can be used to improve communication within and outside a company - and in a remarkably compact manner the book introduces a host of applications like newsgroups, auto responders, search tools and clippings services.

You may not choose - as yet - to sell your product on the Web. Indeed you may not have a tangible product to sell. But the Net still offers some marketing edge over traditional methods. The authors make a convincing case for using Net-based linkages for faster product development and more effective advertising, administration and financial control.

Sensibly, the authors provide a brief checklist of ``roadblocks'' enroute to electronic ``nirvana''. The message that lingers at the end of this snappy treatise is: the time it took you to read this book is all that you can afford to spend. Delay further, and the ``cyberevolution'' will go on without you.

ANAND PARTHASARATHY

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