E-Marketplace Regression of National Trucking Exchange

Abstract

This article discusses a business-to-business (B2B) electronic marketplace’s (e-marketplace’s) turnaround. National Trucking Exchange (NTX), a pseudonym, became one of the first true B2B e-marketplaces when it transferred its dial-up exchange to the Internet in 1996 (Patsuris, 2000). For 5 years, NTX struggled to conduct transactions. When the business environment changed and NTX incorporated powerful organization’s preferences, its turnaround began. NTX’s experience shows how using power and overcoming competition facilitates bringing a critical mass of competitive organizations together to form an information-technology initiative benefiting the entire industry. The article discusses NTX’s background, describes its business, and offers lessons from NTX’s turnaround. These insights are based on a case study (Dube’ & Pare’, 2003; Eisenhardt, 1989) of NTX’s B2B e-marketplace. The study spanned the dot-com boom, bust, and stabilization. The research included field visits with NTX, its organizational members, and a buyer and a seller that declined NTX’s membership invitations. Data collection included participant observations, system demonstrations, interviews, surveys, and internal and external document reviews. We interviewed the people in each organization responsible for the organization’s NTX participation. NTX is a B2B e-marketplace for the United States transportation industry. B2B e-marketplaces bring together businesses wishing to sell and those wishing to buy goods and services. They promise trading communities increased business purchasing efficiency and economy by replacing traditional, limited seller-buyer networks with a B2B e-marketplace with many more sellers competing on cost, quality, and service. Sellers can contact more buyers more efficiently. NTX’s founder and a venture capitalist group formed NTX in 1994 to solve the transportation industry’s unused-capacity problem. Unused capacity occurs when carriers deliver products along their routes and their remaining trailer capacity is empty (Patsuris, 2000). The American Trucking Association estimates that United States carriers travel 12% of their miles without a payload (Patsuris).