[This is a re-post
(originally posted on 19 Jan 2013) with minor edits, deleted the original post
by mistake.]
The second is
user-sensitive content. This means that
the site track how a consumer use it and reacts pro-actively to it. Similar articles popping up when you read a
news website is a simple example. And if
I am browsing a football website reading articles on Arsenal, I would prefer
the site to automatically list other news on Arsenal rather than generic news
of the other teams in the Premiership. But
I may also read articles on Arsenal’s main competitors but not anything else. The site will continuously track this and
list news on them as well so that the content is user-sensitive. This way, I do not need to drill deeper into
the site to look for other articles. I
click once for the first article and because the site displays similar
articles, my second click gets directly me to the other articles; quick, convenient,
good user experience. I don’t have to
return to the homepage. Today most
business websites do not even carry out simple tracking but it can be expected
to change as companies engage the internet more deeply. Wouldn’t it impress the client if a bank
could let him know not just his balance when he checks online but the amount
left after all his usual bills are paid?
These are elementary rules-based methods.
That last example
was from a recent issue of the Economist on a special report on the future of
banking, where it suggests that ease and convenience always create change. It says that bank branch operations are
already feeling the impact with the popularity of smart phones and the internet
causing customers to visit branches less frequently but also sharply to
increase the number of transactions with their bank. Now, ease and convenience can be magnified online
as the user experience rule dictates.
And should a banker retort that a bank is a physical business,
downplaying online experiences for example, we know that money is becoming less
physical and in time will become virtual, that is, an information business. As with the music and media industry, the
information age disrupts information-based businesses.
In the last few
weeks, a few of the 20 direct and indirect ‘rules’ were presented. This column will move on to other
topics. Now for some concluding remarks
on this series on ‘rules’.
First,
like anything else, crowdsourcing, co-creation or other ‘rules’ is not
applicable to everything all the time so analysis on the subject is required
before application.
Second, I am sure
you too have noticed the difference between the traditional and the new crop of
companies, specifically on their differing approaches to business, using the
internet to disrupt. The sad case of Borders,
a favourite of my daughter is a case in point.
The information cycle is at the ‘teenager’ stage and maybe that is the
problem. Teenagers never listen and are
always trying to upend the order of things.
The front-line information-based industry – music, media, telco, travel
agencies have already felt the impact.
Those that depend a lot on information are next - recruitment, travel,
trading. In fact, employing the ‘direct’
approach, hot new firms in commerce are sprouting up like locusts challenging
traditional retailers. But these
retailers are not going away. They will
change. They must because the internet
cut costs. One traditional business that
is not impacted is logistics, in fact as I shared during a talk on the internet
in a conference in early 1990’s, logistics is a great internet business, it
will continue to grow. Now though to
grow even faster, they need to align with the internet online models. Further along are industries where its core
product is being digitised. The next world
war, still a distance away, could be in finance as money is virtualised. Education and IT will also be the next big
targets. Actually Asia
has not felt it much yet but ‘akan dating’ (Malay for ‘coming’). And those that depend on regulation to
protect them should not be too complacent.
The globalness of the internet will force their hands, sooner than
later. Who remembers dog years? And maybe they could take a lesson from the
telco industry. The internet pioneers
all knew this would happen back in the early 1990’s.
For companies
hoping that incremental engagement of the internet is viable, consider
these. HuffingtonPost became the largest
web newspaper within a few years, long after the traditional newspapers’ foray
online. LinkedIn is a better recruitment
site. It is just a few years old with a
business model so different, it is like the women of Venus compared to Martian
men. Compare the time it took Amazon to
leapfrog over traditional book sellers.
Obstacles for the traditional companies are as old as when the word
‘change’ came into the vocabulary; cultural inertia, complex legacies and
political wrangling against the new and improved ways of working.
Lastly, openness is
probably the single most important culture and strategy consideration. One manifestation is the openness of the new
generation of firms compared to the conventional wisdom of traditional companies
to be closed. They open up and engage
the community deliberately, and benefits.
I also cannot help noticing that a lot of these developments seem in
line with British Prime Minister David Cameron’s Big Society ideology! Another 30 years after the normalcy of the
European crisis?
These series of
articles was an attempt to broach the internet business model and some of the
methods used, perhaps to provoke. From
here, the blog will be a bit more random, discussing various topics including
impacts in part by applying the ‘internet rules’, commentaries on the issues of
the day, more ‘rules’, etc.
Be open!
“Paypal is possibly the world's
biggest bank with more than 100m account holders” – The Economist. Does the banking fraternity really know what’s
coming and I’m not talking about Paypal!
LinkedIn – dr tommi
chen (goggle + profile not completed)
©Chen Thet Ngian, InternetBusinessModelAsia.blogspot.com
(2012, 2013). Unauthorized use and/or
duplication of this material without express and written permission from this
blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be
used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Chen Thet Ngian and InternetBusinessModelAsia.blogspot.com
with appropriate and specific direction to the original content
No comments:
Post a Comment