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Bain ranks e-ventures

By Phillip de Wet, ,
Johannesburg, 30 Nov 2000

Management consulting firm Bain & Company and the Financial Mail have released the first Bain FM E-Index, which seeks to rate the top South African companies involved in e-business.

[VIDEO]Bain says the index is the first to map the best prospects in the e-business sector based on independent research.

The index was compiled by scoring 107 companies on four main criteria after several rounds of interviews with the individual companies.

Wildlife viewing portal AfriCam came out on top, scoring 90 out of a possible 100, with business-to-business (B2B) healthcare facilitator HealthBridge following closely with 89 points, and online share trading site Tradek third on 82 points.

[VIDEO]IQ Health`s Healthe Zone, MTN-ICE, Agri24, Woolworths InTheBag, Streetcar.com, CareerJunction and BidorBuy also ranked among the top 10.

"We launched the index to identify the e-commerce companies that will add the most value to SA," says Bain & Company SA managing partner Dean Donovan. Many companies that use the Web productively but without real innovation were disqualified by the judging criteria, he says.

Companies were judged on four main criteria: the business impact and sustainability, innovation in the business model and technology used, execution and a proven track record of revenue and the level of funding as well as the source of such funding.

[VIDEO]AfriCam scored as follows: 25/25 for innovation, 25/30 on business impact, 24/25 for execution and 16/20 for funding.

HealthBridge, MTN-ICE and Streetcar.com also scored perfectly for innovation.

"The winners have all done some simple and basic things," says Donovan. "The old business principles still apply in the new economy."

[VIDEO]Yet a high ranking on the index does not ensure future success, he says. "E-index fortunes are likely to rise and fall quickly over time, as a result of new entrants and the rapid pace of change in this sector."

According to Bain`s demographics of the ranked top 10, only three are involved in B2B. Most of the top 10 have a geographic presence only in SA and operate ".co.za" Web sites, and the majority are also headquartered in Johannesburg.

Only Tradek is publicly traded, but funding among the top 10 is mostly from corporate backers, with venture capital and angel investors providing less capital.

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