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E-nablers
NeuVis reaches for brass ring by giving cyberbiz the business
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Business New Haven
2/7/2000
By: Michael Gomez
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Remember the Field of Dreams theory of cyberspace: “If you build it, they will come”? Well, if you operate on that belief today, you're bound to become Web roadkill.
Gone are the times when a terrific idea was enough on which to stake an Internet presence. Now if enough hardware, software and information technology experts to run a missile silo don't back your site, buyers will beat a path away from your portal.
A ballpark in the Iowa cornfields was never enough. Paying customers there demand the entire experience - parking, security, food and drinks, restrooms, souvenirs, costumed mascots, between-innings entertainment, giant TV screens, theme music for star players, programs, audience contests, etc. It's the same with electronic commerce.
The e-commerce industry has rapidly grown and diverged. Forrester Research, a technology-analysis firm, estimates that electronic business today tops $10 billion annually, and is expected to hit $65 billion by 2003.
One huge sector of the industry is driven by merchandising ideas - new distribution methods, retail models and pricing schemes, virtual warehouses, vapor inventory, and the like. The winning brand names there are Amazon, CDNow, e-Bay and Priceline.
Electronic Enablers
Another fast-growing e-commerce sector is the enablers, those companies that build and market the how-to equipment and systems that bring buyers to a site, and make sure their purchasing experience is designed with ease of use and efficiency.
Southern Connecticut is beginning to earn a reputation as a hotbed of e-commerce enablers, high-tech companies that don't sell dirt-cheap airline tickets, books or music, but do sell e-business “solutions” to purveyors who do sell such goods directly to consumers.
Consumers' online buying experiences remain mixed, with some Internet merchants capable of delivering goods and services as promised and others - such as Toys 'R' Us during the 1999 holiday season - dropping the ball and disappointing customers (and their screaming, Barbie-less children).
About one out of six online consumers believe Internet buying is more likely to have snafus than trudging through bricks and mortar stores. Increasing customer comfort and satisfaction in the online marketplace is one way to generate repeat e-business - a critical path to any business success.
Shelton is home to several e-business solutions companies. One recent addition to the portfolio there is NeuVis, which designs, develops and markets essential back-office systems that keep enterprises humming, such as procurement, bill payment, order fulfillment, and customer sales and support functions.
NeuVis was established (under a different name) in 1995 to build tools and techniques for online business applications. As it neared product development in 1999, it branded itself NeuVis. In late January, it announced its entry into the electronic business sweepstakes, and broke an expensive print advertising campaign to introduce itself to business executives.
Arun Gupta, a native of India (and now a resident of Easton) founded NeuVis' initial company after working as a technologist and business strategist for other Internet and high-tech companies. He is the firm's chairman and CEO.
Six years ago, Gupta recalls, he got excited about the commercial potential of the infant Internet. He saw cyberspace as a brand new way of doing business.
“It rivals the Industrial Revolution” of the mid-1800s, he enthuses. And just as the original Industrial Revolution didn't bloom until new work processes and disciplines, such as engineering, took root, the “New Economy” won't fully transform business until important changes occur in the architecture of the computer systems that underpin e-commerce, Gupta asserts.
Disciplining Software Development
With a master's in computer science from the Polytechnic Institute in New York and many years in computer jobs for technology companies, Gupta talks easily about programming and engineering. Yet he pooh-poohs the characterization of software development as an “art form.”
“There's a lack of discipline in software engineering,” he says. “Consequently, there's no reliable infrastructure to build software.”
Programmers, he says, must begin with the equivalent of a blank piece of paper and write the digital code that commands a system to do every task, no matter how mundane. Without an infrastructure, software developers spend a lot of time just preparing to add serious functionality to a system.
So Gupta and his technical colleagues set out to create visual software architecture tools, analogous to CAD-CAM systems and other graphic programs that have speeded up architecture, construction and advertising and design.
Million-Dollar 'Workbench'
Their product, which is called NeuCommerce, is a component system that helps creators of electronic commerce sites to design, and not program, changes to their e-business operation. The initial component, sort of a virtual workbench, allows a developer to build a Web site in minutes, using any technology desired, including competing technologies.
Other components in the suite provide an engineered approach to system development and function as a building block for establishing electronic marketplaces or exchanges that connect electronic buyers and sellers.
Overlaid on it all is an industry-specific framework that allows an e-business executive to create a customized electronic engine that is automated, and not hand-coded. NeuVis has developed templates for banking, brokerages, insurance and health care companies, retailers, travel agents, education markets, the media, human resources applications and drugstores.
Gupta calls this “engineered development,” and says it sharply reduces the time necessary to design, develop and deploy an e-commerce Web site.
“A typical development cycle using traditional tools can last from six to 18 months,” he says. “We understand that businesses can't afford to wait that long. By combining our expertise in vertical markets with our automated construction tools, we can cut the development time down to as little as 12 to 15 weeks.”
But quicker-to-market carries a hefty price tag: the NeuVis product suite costs in the mid-seven figures, especially for the fast growing business-to-business exchange sector, which brings buyers and sellers together into a sort of cyber-bazaar.
Fast Growth; Porsches To Come?
As with any Internet company worth its graduate degrees, NeuVis aspires to NASDAQ heaven. From six employees only last July, the company has shot up to more than 170 workers.
Gupta asserts that “dozens” of projects are in the works for Internet start-ups and large, established businesses that are seeking to update their Web sites. That indicates his 2000 revenues will most likely top $15 million to $20 million.
“Yes, we're looking at an IPO,” he says. “And it may happen this year.”
The executive charged with creating an environment to achieve such riches is Peter Intermaggio, executive vice president for marketing. A veteran of the New York advertising industry, Intermaggio will be spearheading an $18 million marketing budget this year to create a buzz about NeuVis.
“Our goal is to establish NeuVis as the next great technology brand,” he says. Four full-page advertisements in the January 27 editions of the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and other general-circulation newspapers across the U.S. kicked off a marketing positioning effort to pique the interest of CEOs looking to gain an e-commerce advantage. Ads will follow in widely read business magazines.
The day after that advertising barrage hit, NeuVis' Web site (www.neuvis.com) received almost 50,000 hits, though that interest in no way equals business leads. NeuVis' six-person marketing team, in tandem with its advertising and public relations agencies, will seek to make a name for itself in advertising, on its Web site, in partner relationships with large consulting firms, at trade shows and events, and in PR activities.
If they build it...
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