WHSmith plays e-catch up with services portal

WHSmith has launched a trading portal that will link 8,000 news outlets to the Internet in a move that reflects a major turnaround in the company's approach to ecommerce strategy.

The portal - developed in association with the company's technology partner, Axon- will provide a platform for communicating electronically with its own and independent news outlets across the country.

Retailers to the newsagent market - including confectioners, cigarette wholesalers and professional services such as banks and accountants - will be invited to offer services through the portal to a captive audience of newsagents.

Axon's chief operating officer, Don Kirkwood, said this venture into ebusiness reflects major boardroom reshuffles.

"The new CEO, Richard Handover, is totally dynamic and determined to unlock WHSmith's real assets which lie in the business-to-business area," he said. Kirkwood, however, also insisted that Lloyd Wigglesworth, the managing director of WHSmith's news division, and Jeff Powell, its IT director, have also had a hand in the transition.

Jonathan Steel, chairman at research company Bathwick Group, said the move comes in the nick of time for a group that has struggled in the past with its Internet strategy.
"Given that when Amazon.com entered the UK market two years ago, WHSmith's only Web presence was a Web site designed by the chairman's 12 year-old son, [Internet strategy] is something they desperately needed to catch onto," he said.

Business-to-business trading portals are cropping up in every industry as a natural model for companies seeking to use the Internet to streamline operations. The US is leading the field in this area while continental Europe is beginning to catch up.