According to the second quarter survey, 84% of the 390 companies contacted consider the Internet important for buying online, although only 29.3% can document cost savings. The importance of the Internet and the value of documented savings is consistently higher at larger companies than at smaller ones.

What distinguishes companies that are finding success buying online from those that aren’t? According to the survey, three characteristics set them apart:

• Level of commitment. “Successful Internet buyers don’t dabble,” Forrester observes. Leading organizations purchase three times as much of their indirect materials (14% versus 4%) and more than twice as much of their direct materials (9% versus 4%) online than less successful companies do.
• Use of new buying models. “Thriving online buyers are more than twice as likely to use an e-marketplace (43% versus 19%) and almost three times as likely to buy through online auctions (37% versus 14%) compared with other organizations.”
• Collaboration with suppliers. 60% of successful online buyers use the Internet to collaborate with suppliers, compared with 39% of less successful organizations, Forrester found.

The biggest challenge for companies seeking to harness the power of the Internet is integration, the survey found. “When asked about obstacles to their Net activities, organizations most often mentioned the efforts required to integrate online buying with their internal systems. This represents a shift from Q1, when the predominant comments concerned the economic downturn.”

The survey results shouldn’t be much of a surprise. Success generally comes in direct proportion to commitment, so it’s reasonable that the more committed a company is to online purchasing, the more successful it will be. Meanwhile, eliminating islands of automation has been a dream in manufacturing for decades. The vendor who makes a firm commitment to achieving true integration and who delivers on that commitment won’t just be successful – they will own the gold mine.