ECOMMERCE: YOUR OPPORTUNITIES ARE UNLIMITED
Peter Drucker believes ecommerce will be to the Information Revolution what the
railroads were to the Industrial Revolution.*
To oversimplify, the Industrial Revolution was a time in which tools were produced
that replaced people in the manufacture of goods. In the first thirty years, all
was devoted to producing known products with machines.
While there were drastic social changes with the massive shift from rural to urban
living, there was little change in the products produced and purchased. They only
became more readily available at ever more modest cost.
Only later did the Industrial Revolution produce something new - the railroads.
For the first time in history, people could readily move great distances inexpensively.
(Hauling freight came much later.) Railroads brought a thirty year boom in Europe,
and an even longer one in the United States. While many other parts of the world
got started somewhat later, the boom did not end for them until the outbreak of
World War I.
What Will Arise From The Information Revolution?
The parallels between the Industrial and Information Revolutions are astonishing.
Thus far computers, the Web, and information technology have created nothing dramatically
new.
They have merely changed the ways in which information is gathered, managed and
reported. And to some extent, the way in which consumers purchase goods.
Computers themselves have changed the way in which products are manufactured, including
their design. And a few new spinoffs have come to the fore. But there has not been
anything revolutionary in any of this. Nothing yet has had the impact of railroads
on the whole of the social fabric.
If Drucker is correct, ecommerce will have an impact equivalent to that of the railroads
earlier. Thus far the Web has produced less change in the way business is done than
ore cars running on steel rails effected mining. In short, the real drama and excitement
is yet to be revealed.
Given easy access to the Web, you and I have been invited to join in. For myself,
I don't want to miss a beat.
A Radical Shift Is Upon Us
There appears to be an awesome and exciting shift emerging in the way business is
done. There are those who feel that if it's good for business, it's good. Period.
I hold a different view: If it's not good for people, it's not good.
Many with a business orientation are likely to abandon my thinking here. Those convinced
people are sheep born to be shorn certainly will. But whatever your view, enormous
changes in the way in which business is done are rushing down upon us. Companies
who do not embrace them, will be swept away into history.
What Will Customer Service Come To Mean?
For example, automated telephone systems and elevator music will fade away, as will
the companies that cling to such barriers. People will not be content much longer,
with clutching a phone to their ear, trying to accomplish some other task, while
waiting for the answer they need right now.
"The customer comes first" will remain the driving force behind all successful businesses.
Today, such phrases mumbled by all are generally mere tokenism. Tomorrow they will
come to have an entirely new meaning.
Contemporary companies provide such services at their convenience. The endless round
of voice mail and recordings in which busy people respond only to leave yet another
message will come to a screeching halt. Successful companies will provide support
when a customer requests it. And they will do so quickly.
Conglomerates May Become Extinct
People have had enough of businesses concerned about their bottom line. They are
becoming increasingly concerned about their own needs. They are even now turning
away from those who fail to recognize this. Business success in the future will
depend heavily upon effective customer support provided immediately upon request.
Conglomerates may be dinosaurs, so huge, so driven by their own inertia, they will
disintegrate back into the smaller parts from which they were created. Such companies
talk of customer relationships, but often do all possible to avoid any semblance
of one-on-one customer support. Smaller firms can be responsive.
Those who are, will outperform those who are not.
I am excited about the future for Cyberpreneurs. They will understand they need
their customers more than the customer needs them. Untroubled by the constraints
of contemporary business practices, they will see responsiveness to customers as
an essential fundamental of their business. This characteristic of itself will give
them a competitive edge over large businesses that do not.
The Future Is Yours For The Taking
One by one, creative people will consider ways in which conglomerates produce and
deliver products. They will then discover a way in which they can do so more effectively.
The much larger company will hardly be aware of the tiny loss in revenue. But given
many such losses, the bottom line will begin to erode.
Completely new business models will emerge. They will seem so right, so perfectly
attuned to both the needs of businesses and consumers, we will wonder why they did
not appear much sooner.
There will be a return to a "Rural," rather than an "Urban," pattern of living,
one independent of where you choose to live. In this "reversal," there will be a
return to individuals being valued. Once again, as was so prior to the Industrial
Revolution, people will be both producer and consumer, making a significant contribution
in both roles.
The Real "New World"
I continue to hear the Web is not real. That it is nothing more than herds of impulses
stampeding about on copper or optical cables. What is reality? I will leave this
to the philosophers. But there is no question in my mind; the Web is real. A new
reality, at that.
You can feel the awesome power and unlimited resources surging from the collective
dynamic of millions and millions
of people the world over. People who are real. Our interaction with each other is
real, and now unlimited by national boundaries. The Web itself is but a tool. Not
unlike the telephone, but magnitudes more powerful. It facilitates the ability to
interrelate, to communicate one-on-one. And we will do so in ways not yet imagined.
Welcome to today's "New World."
(Taken from "Your Path To Success" to be released in September, 2001)
__________________
*"Beyond the Information Revolution" by Peter F. Drucker, "The Atlantic Monthly,"
Oct 1999, p47-57.
About the Author
Bob McElwain
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