SciQuest.com's B2B E-Marketplace

The Need Contd...

To overcome these limitations of the traditional supply chain for scientific products and to meet the information needs of scientists' e-commerce seemed to offer the best solution. Realizing this, Sciquest.com (SciQuest), a web site offering a wide range of services to scientists and purchasing professionals, launched a business-to-business (B2B) e-marketplace in 1998. The B2B e-marketplace offered scientific and laboratory products used by pharmaceutical, clinical, biotechnology, industrial and educational organizations worldwide.

Background Note

SciQuest was founded by Peyton Anderson (Anderson), Scott Andrews and Keith Gunter in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina in 1995. Before opening its online store, SciQuest conducted a survey of the audience its web site planned to target.

The company first launched an informational web site and product-sourcing service in 1995. The web site allowed users to access a comprehensive online database of scientific products and suppliers with a powerful search engine.

SciQuest generated its revenues from scientific vendors who paid an annual subscription fee for inclusion in the database.

By 1999, about 25,000 of the 150,000 research laboratories in the US used SciQuest for research and browsing and 50,000 unique visitors² logged on to the site every month. Although the web site was becoming increasingly popular, the founders had much bigger plans for it. All of them were former sales professionals for Baxter Scientific Products, which sold beakers, test tubes and chemicals to scientist, and they were well aware that many companies encouraged their scientists to procure specialized equipment, products and high precision tools, on their own. Commenting on the 4-6 hours spent by scientists for procuring supplies, Anderson said, "If you multiply that across 100,000 scientists, and we save them five percent of their time, it's equivalent to having 5,000 more researchers looking for new drugs and new cures.

SciQuest.com's B2B E-Marketplace - Next Page >>>

2] While tracking the volume of traffic on a website, it refers to a person who visits a website more than once within a specified period of time. Unique visitors are measured according to their unique IP addresses and are counted only once no matter how many times they visit the site.

Case Details

Case Code : ITSY008
Themes: Internet Companies
Case Length : 09 Pages
Period : 1990-2001
Organization : SciQuest.com
Pub Date : 2002
Teaching Note : Available
Countries : USA
Industry : Information Technology (Electronic Commerce)

Free Case Studies

Business Strategy
Finance
HRM
Insurance
IT and Systems
Marketing
Operations
Leadership
More Case Studies >>

Micro Case Studies

Business Environment
Finance
Business Strategy
Human Resource Management
IT and Systems
Marketing
Operations
Micro Case Studies >>

Free Resources

Micro Case Studies
Free Case Studies
Articles
Interviews
Book Reviews
Glossary
Online Quiz
More Free Resources >>

Case Related Links

Best Selling Case Studies
Business Case Studies
Learning With Case Studies
Cases Used in Textbooks
Prize Winning Case Studies
More Case Studies >>

Case Studies and Management Resources

Asia's Most Popular Collection of Management Case Studies