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Led Zeppelin: This Robert Plant is an artist of e-commerce
GB430 is packed with students. Every PC
screen in the tiered-seating style classroom is lit up, but all eyes are
focused on the tall, well-dressed male standing at the podium.
In a clear British accent, he is lecturing on e-commerce strategy
and the way organizations use information technology to achieve
competitive advantage in the business world. When class adjourns,
he'll lecture on the same topic, as well as others, to similarly
packed classrooms of future entrepreneurs.
 These days, it seems that Robert Plant, associate
professor of computer information systems at the School of Business Administration,
is just as popular a figure with audiences as his fellow British namesake
was when he performed with the group Led Zeppelin during most of the 1970s.
But there's a good reason students are flocking to Plant's
classes like music fans to Radio City Music Hall. In his courses,
Plant addresses what is arguably the hottest topic in the world
of business today: e-commerce.
And he's got the credentials and expertise to do it-a doctoral
degree in computer science from the University of Liverpool,
England, and several visiting teaching and research positions
at universities all over the world. He has taught executive M.B.A.
programs at IBM, Motorola, Pratt & Whitney, and American
Express, and he is the author of several widely read articles
on e-commerce in the Financial Times of London. Indeed, among
worldwide business circles, he is regarded as a leading consultant
on Internet strategies and mass customization.
With such an impressive resume, you might wonder why Plant
isn't the chief information officer of a top Fortune 500 company.
But to let him tell it, the university atmosphere is exactly
where he wants to be.
"It's the ability to cherry pick the ideas and issues
that you want to follow, teach, and research that is so rewarding
about being here," says Plant. "There's so much out
there, and there's so much interest in academics in the world.
This University allows you to follow your own interests, and
I think that's the beauty of being an academic."
It is e-commerce, virtual organizations, and the role of information
systems in strategic management where Plant's interests lie. He recently
published his take on the e-commerce revolution in a book that outlines
some of the business models companies are using today. eCommerce: Formulation
of Strategy (Prentice Hall, 2000) is the result of Plant's research and
interviews with senior executives from 42 companies around the world.
So far the book has sold about 10,000 copies. A Spanish-language version
is now available, and a Chinese version comes out later this year.
 Interest in his book is strong, and now almost
every major business publication and newspaper in the country is after
Plant for his opinion on the rash of failing dot-coms.
"The problem with most of the dot-coms is that they never
looked at the entire sales cycle," he says. "They were
overoptimistic in their revenue model. They thought that most
people would come to them and buy products, and if consumers
didn't buy, they thought the advertising revenue would make up
for any discrepancy in their business plan. What they didn't
realize was that basically five sites attract over 75 percent
of all advertising revenue."
Plant says many companies also didn't factor in the enormous
cost of shipping their products. "It's like taking a 30-pound
bag of dog food that costs $6 and shipping it for $9," says
Plant. "It costs more money to ship than the price people
were paying. And nobody's going to pay more for an item that
they can get in their local supermarket for less."
Despite the recent rash of dot-com flameouts, Plant says students
who are banking on Internet-related careers shouldn't be discouraged.
"There are careers still within the dot-com landscape,"
says Plant. "There is the B2C space that's still going to
develop; it hasn't gone away. It's just that the models that
were overoptimistic have gone away. What it's being replaced
with are people with solid ideas who have solid revenue. And
those models will continue to come out of entrepreneurial student
minds."
With Plant as their instructor, you can probably bet on a
bright future of up-and-coming dot-commers.
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Working out of NOAA's Atlantic
Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory on Virginia Key,
Morisseau-Leroy designs database software applications to store
atmospheric observation data that scientists use to study storms.
She sifts through streams of data such as wind speed and direction,
barometric pressure, humidity, and dew point temperature, and
formats it so that scientists can easily get to it. Stationary
and polar-orbiting satellites, sea buoys, and aircraft that fly
directly into storms provide the information.