Walter W. Buckley III is the co-founder, president and chief executive officer of Internet Capital Group. He is also a member of ICG's Office of the President and board of directors. Prior to forming ICG, Buckley was vice president of acquisitions for Safeguard Scientifics, Inc., where he led many of Safeguard's investments through the mid-1990s, including Diamond Technology, XL Vision, Chromo Vision and Video Server. He was also responsible for developing and executing Safeguard's multimedia and Internet investment strategies.

After graduating from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Buckley spent three years at Core-- States as a commercial loan officer for the bank. He then co-founded and was president of Centralized Management Systems, a medical supply company that he sold in 1987.

What will he the overall impact of B2B e-commerce?

The B2B revolution is truly massive in scale. It's reinventing how we live, and, more importantly, how we work and how businesses function. It will affect the back end, which is the procurement of products in the supply chain, and, long term, the front end, which is sales, customer interaction and dealing with your employees.

What do CEOs need to understand as they move their companies into the B2B realm?

They need to realize the enormous challenges they face in executing this - the complexity of it, the breadth of it, the management skills they may or may not have, the culture they need. They must to be able to look at themselves in the mirror and say, "Yes, I need to change how I do business."

For those who are aggressive and claim that advantage - in whatever Global 2000 industry we're talking about - the rewards are going to be enormous. And not in terms of just market share and stock prices, but in savings on improving their purchasing, lowering their sales costs and reaching their customers.

What are the major impedi-- ments that companies face in embracing B2B?

Commitment and legacy. The technology is not that hard. The Internet is fairly easy and fairly inexpensive. But there is a huge legacy out there. To overcome that, you need tremendous commitment, not only from an energy and personnel standpoint, but also the financial investment. However, it's not something that you need to do all at once. Focus on one or two areas, do it well and learn, and then redeploy that approach in other areas.

What are the major benefits of working with ICG and Its network of 11211 companies?

The beauty of the ICG network is that we can approach a company in whatever stage of development it is in and offer strategic input. As we identify areas to focus on, we have more than 70 partner companies to provide expertise. And where appropriate, we can build new businesses together. Plus, the quality of the management team that we've built is absolutely best in class. At the end of the day, what makes great companies great is their management teams. The culture, focus and commitment we have are phenomenal.