Article at a glance:

Building enduring consortia

Consortium-based vertical marketplaces (CBVMs)—joint ventures among participants in a particular industry—were supposed to embody the future of business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce. Their advantages, however, have been slow to materialize. Besides experiencing the same problems that have afflicted other types of B2B exchange, CBVMs have suffered additional difficulties arising from their own business strategies and their founders' behavior. How can they turn things around?

The take-away

CBVMs will improve their fortunes only if they can exploit their unique advantages—primarily the size and sophistication of the businesses that founded them and the exceptional value of their deep industry knowledge.