quickly faced stiff competition. Now there are at least 20 different companies in the United Kingdom that sells toys online. On January 4, eToys cut 380 jobs in Europe and said it would cut another 320 by the end of March. It has now closed its British operations. They are inching closer to bankruptcy everyday. After the mistakes going international before they were ready and not becoming affiliated with an off-line partner. In the end, the global lesson is not all that different from those closer to home: Business-to-consumer e-business should ensure that they have the resources to build market share and brand awareness. Their online operations should use the Internet's features to create a unique value proposition and build relationships with suppliers and customers. If they can't , they should cut their losses and withdraw(Gomolski 1).Companies that venture into other countries on their own are not the only ones that can fail. Many times joint ventures between two international companies have difficulties. AT&T is a perfect example of how joint ventures can go wrong. AT&T, the biggest US long-distance phone company, has had numerous failed international joint ventures including the World Partners alliance with Japanese carrier Kokusai Denshin Denwa, Singapore Telecommunications and Telstra in the early 1990's and its Unisource joint venture with Telia, Swiss Telecom and Telecom Netherlands that was dissolved in 1999. Their most recent blunder was a joint venture with British Telecommunications, Britain's second biggest phone company, (BT). The saga of BT is full of lost chances. Four years ago, it tried and failed to merge with MCI. In 1998, AT&T and BT formed Concert in an attempt to serve companies around the world. After the joint venture, Concert embarked on an 18-month buying binge. They teamed up to buy one-third of Canada's biggest wireless phone outfit, Rogers Cantel Mobile Communications. The companies in...
