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Innovation and Invention - The Internet as a Business Enabler
Part two of a three-part series

The Internet can transform your company's operations, increase customer convenience and flexibility, and create new products and services and ways to deliver them. If you're not sure how, study the ways in which other businesses and consumers are using the Internet.

For instance, on my doctor's Web site, patients can fill out initial paperwork, download required documents, select preferred appointment times, and pay bills.

The ability of patients to save time by going online to complete some of the tedious chores associated with doctors' visits helps set this medical practice apart from many others in my area and, no doubt, helps reduce some of its administrative overhead and associated costs.

At least one auto insurance company has created a mobile application for filing accident claims. Using wireless connectivity--via phone or WiFi Internet service--and capitalizing on Internet data-sharing capabilities, the application allows customers to collect data needed to make a claim, file the claim from any location, and find the nearest branch office.

Sharing pictures with family and friends used to take days or even weeks between the time it took to finish the film roll, develop it, and mail prints. Digital cameras have made the process easier, but you still must connect them to a computer with Internet access before you can send them via e-mail or upload them.

Now you can upload photos directly from your mobile device, and your family and friends can have them automatically displayed in their Internet-connected digital photo frames seconds after you've taken them--all for a fee, of course.

Survey your business to see where the Internet can save you and your customers time. Look for ways to package existing products, services, and processes with new technologies so that they can be accessed, shared, or delivered online, possibly increasing their sales by making them seem new and fresh.

Think of entirely new products and services--especially mobile-enabled ones--that take advantage of the increasingly universal availability of Internet access.

By offering convenience, efficiency in routine business processes, and the promise of creating and selling entirely new products and services, the Internet has become a key building block in the continual process of business innovation and invention. It can help any company better serve existing customers and reach new ones both close to home and far away. Submitted by Ricardo Harvin, U.S. Chamber of Commerce.