E-biz is business too

Internet: To be or not to be. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone thought of it as

another variant of B2B, B2C or B2E. There is so much happening in the Internet

world, that anything may be possible. For this reason it is critical for us to

take a hard look at what is happening around us and be able to see things in the

right perspective. Today, developments in the Internet world are like those on

the stock market. One good news and everyone wants to get onto the Internet

business. One bad news and everyone wants to get out.

Look what’s happened on the dot-com scenario. Today people talk of it with disdain.

People don’t want to touch it with a barge pole. The same people at one time

were dying to invest in them. I used to wonder what’s happening. Probably

never in the history of business was so much put on so little. Everything in the

name of the future. And now suddenly, it has all changed.

For

a lot of businessmen wanting to do business on the Net, such sea-saw swings pose

a lot of problems and only create confusion. Questions arise whether this entire

business concept around the Internet is on sound footing or not. And for those

who may think that it is, the question might still be whether the timing as of

now is right or not. And therefore the question: 2B or not 2B.

To

be sure, there are no straightforward simple answers. There are too many

developments taking place on the technology front. And there is a lot at stake

for a lot of big names in the IT industry. There is too much investment that

these companies have made in the technologies that they promote. Defending which

way the consumer goes, there is a lot to be gained and a lot to be lost. To

hedge their bets, these companies are cross investing in a whole lot of other

companies which according to them may be strong players in the technologies of

tomorrow. To that extent, the technology companies are behaving more like the

companies in the reinsurance business.

What

makes things more difficult is the hype that gets created around different

technologies. The IT industry has thrived on hype. The fact that so much new

stuff is happening in IT also helps create hype after hype. By the time one hype

dies down, we are ready with another. Memories of the biggest hype of the

century, the Y2K problem, must be still vivid in your minds. The user community

went through a lot of anxiety and I’m sure a lot of pain trying to solve the

problems posed by the Y2K bug. And the software industry made a lot of money in

the process. Come to think of it. The software guys are real smart. First they

got paid for creating a problem. And then they got paid for solving it. We would

love to be in that kind of situation, wouldn't we?

But

somewhere, Karma always catches up. In the Internet world, nobody is sure which

way things will ultimately move. And this time it is the consumer at large who

will decide everyone’s fate. For at the end of the day, there will be strong

social factor that will also decide the direction of the Internet. This time

around the IT players themselves are not sure what shape business on the Net

will finally take.

So

what do you do? If you think these guys are going to give up so easily, you’ve

got it all wrong. What do you do when you’re not sure? As I said earlier, you

hedge your bets. That means put a little on everything. But we in the IT

industry are smart guys. We can’t possibly admit we don’t know where we are

headed. So we coin a new term--convergence. And create hype around it. Now in

the name of convergence, we have the liberty of investing in everything without

giving ourselves away.

Looking

at all this, it would be surprising if most people didn’t feel lost. At the

same time, they are aware that something of epic proportions is happening right

in their midst. They are keenly aware that the world is going to change

drastically. They sense that if they are not part of this change, they may be

left out. Not all of them understand the technologies relating to this change.

And that adds to their discomfort. They are not sure if they can need to the

advice of the technology brokers for these people may have a vested interest. So

what do you do? Again 2B or not 2B….

No

wonder that in times like these, people tend to rely a lot on independent

surveys.

We

had a survey sometime back on how the number of Internet users are going to

grow. How reliable were the projections? Depends on how you look at it. The

actual number of Internet users far surpasses the figures that were projected.

So all of us are very happy that we are doing much better than we thought.

Looking

at it another way, we might say that since the projections were highly

underestimated, a whole lot of potential or existing businessmen who might have

looked at Net business differently and way may have invested a lot more,

probably did not do so.

Closer

home, the NASSCOM, McKinsy report on the future of IT-enabled services has

created a lot of waves and interest. Anyone who has some spare money wants to

set up a call center. But where is the business? Do these people understand this

business? What would happen if all these people set up business based on this

report and were then not able to get business as projected? Would it be the same

case as the dotcoms?

Again,

there are no easy answers. And I’m not sure that we should even look for

straight jacketed ones. Technology predictions can be a tricky thing. One

out-of-the-way breakthrough could suddenly change the entire scenario. And where

so many technology companies are working overtime to grab a large slice of the

new market place, which development could change the entire course of events may

be difficult to fathom.

What

does one do in such a scenario? This question is more difficult to answer if one

looks at it from the technology perspective. Unfortunately, many people are

doing just that. And in the process getting confused. At the end of the day, we

need to look at it from a business perspective. And look at technology for what

it is–an enabler of business.

Since

there is so much hype around the Net, people end up asking, “What do I do to

fit into the Web?” Instead of asking, “How do I make the Web fit into my

business?” Sure the Web may throw up new business opportunities. But at the

end of the day it is still business. And one needs to apply the age old business

principles here too, i.e. (1) identifying target markets, (2) assessing and

meeting customer needs, and (3) providing reliable services.

What

has happened on the dotcom front is largely because too many people have got

into it without doing their homework right from a business perspective. And most

it has to do with the B2C segment. Everyone who got into this, obviously felt

that he had a great winning idea. But was it compelling enough for the target

audience to make a choice in its favor? Did the promoters have sufficient

resources to make an impact in the market in terms of creating visibility and

sustaining the name? And finally did they have a sustainable USP (Unique selling

proposition)? For if they didn’t, then anybody else with deeper pockets could

copy the idea and do them out of business.

Sumit Sharma


is Associate VP, Microland and author of a book titled ‘The Corporate Circus’