The e-business transformation: FROM CFO TO CEO, FINANCE IN AN INTERNET ECONOMY.

The internet. It's the largest, most powerful and most accessible communications network on the planet. A tool so important in today's ultrasophisticated business environment that corporate leaders are harnessing its global reach and power to alter the technology, processes - even the very structure and culture - of their organizations. In other words, they're making the e-business transformation.

Sun Microsystems, a leading manufacturer of internet hardware and software development tools, is a case in point. Sun, an $11.5 billion company with offices in 150 countries, is using a full spectrum of internet opportunities to eclipse expenses, power up its strategic planning initiatives and heat up overall profitability.

You won't find a dot.corn in their name, but it's in their vision, "to dot.com the world," which includes transforming themselves into an e-business. According to Andy Laverty, a director of Sun's operations in the Americas and the man in charge of Sun's financials, dot.comming their own internal finance and accounting processes has already meant millions of dollars to the company's bottom line. These benefits have come in the form of 30% savings on accounting transaction costs, 75% on travel and expense processing costs and some $50 million in additional savings through internet-based procurement.

Transforming into an e-business means more than consumer-based buying and selling on the internet. "E-commerce as we know it is small potatoes when compared with how much businesses will electronically trade with each other," says Jeff Henley, executive vice president and CFO at Oracle. "Business-to-business e-commerce in the U.S. alone is estimated to exceed $1 trillion in 2003. That's ten times larger than business-to-consumer e-commerce. When companies transform into e-businesses, their strategic partners will have to be online, too. Large companies and entire industries will form electronic business communities. If you're not connected, you won't survive and thrive."

The internet turns today's best-practices paradigm upside down. An e-business enables both internal and external focus, with internet technology touching all aspects of the enterprise. Customers, suppliers and employers are all online, have better information and have the tools to be more efficient by orders of magnitude.

Sun's experience in cutting costs reflects a trend across companies that are transforming into e-businesses. Carlson Companies is also dishing up new ways for its subsidiaries to do business. Carlson is a multifaceted travel, marketing and hospitality services conglomerate based in the U.S., with $22 billion in global systemwide sales. It is known by consumers through its familiar brands, which include Radisson, Regent and Country Inns & Suites hotels; T.G.I. Friday's restaurants; Radisson Seven Seas Cruises; Carlson Wagonlit Travel, Thomas Cook Travel and many less-familiar names.

Carlson implemented Oracle Financials as the cornerstone of a newly launched shared services company, chartered with achieving efficiencies, reducing costs and unifying global business processes among Carlson's brands, which employ 165,000 people in more than 140 countries.

"The goal of every company is to improve the bottom line, and Carlson is discovering that one of the fastest and most effective ways to create a lasting impact is to streamline internal processes," says Oracle's Henley. "In fact, reengineering internal operational efficiencies is the first...