1. s»tom-ers 2
The New Net CEO
Bv Chuck Martin
Tfiere are only two kinds of
peopie in the Net environ-ment:
those who get it and
those who don't. That's it. No
gray area.
The good news is that
once an executive gets it. he
or she doesn't go back. It is
essential that managers and
employees believe their
executive team gets it.
Getting it means under-standing
that the consumer
occupies the center of the
Net Future universe: When
the consumer speaks, the
company listens. Leaders
must focus on reorganizing
It takes executive vision to
create the customer-centered
organization. The new economy
demands bosses who get it.
around their customers.
Soon, focus only on the cur-rent
customer will be the
equivalent of the eariy focus
on the Web (a great site, not
a total e-strategy)—inade-quate,
a mere nod at trans-forming
the enterprise. Vision-aries
in the next revolution
will target how efficiently and
competitively Iheir corpora-tions
can mobilize to serve
customers' real-time needs.
Rrst, they must know those
needs.
To attain superior cus-tomer
focus, executives must
recognize how networked
communication affects peo-
_ple and business, redefining
the way we function at work,
at home, and in the market-place.
To survive the transfor-mation,
business leaders
need to evaluate seven
major cybertrends—the
trends that define the
ultimate in end-to-end
electronic busi-t
ness:
1-Thecyberecono-my
goes Main
Street. New ways
of buying and
selling have cre-ated
a new
breed of online
consumer who
expects faster
delivery, easier
transactions, and
real-time factual
information. Shopping
from home or work-without
leaving a chair—
and experiencing next-day
delivery offers a compelling
value proposition: It frees
time for family, friends, or
other pursuits.
2-The wired workforce takes
over. Corporate intranets that
inform employees and create
virtual work communities alter
the dynamics of the work-place
for both individuals and
organizations. Work can be
done anywhere at any time,
forcing companies to reorga-nize
around their empowered
workers (think talented em-ployee
as asset). The flow of
information changes from
company fo employee to cus-tomer
to wired customer to
wired worker to corporate entity.
making the employee the
new asset of the enterprise.
Nabisco Food Services
has wired its sales force to
deliver customer feedback—
instantaneously and electron-ically—
to corporate man-agers
when a new product
campaign is launched. The
connected leam offers such
direct and immediate
response that Nabisco can
modify programs to suit the
market in real time.
3-The customer becomes data.
Technologies for analyzing
and predicting customer
behavior in real time will
require companies to orga-nize
differently, This new Net-version
of customer centricity
involves real-time customer
interaction and better man-agement
and use of cus-tomer
information.
When a customer makes
a search on Thomas Cook
Travel for a vacation pack-age,
he can supply his tele-phone
number and instantly
receive a call from a cus-tomer
service representative.
The Thomas Cook rep has
instant access to the same
information the potential buy-er
is evaluating. Telemarket-
SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

2. New Economy, New Rules
To survive in an environment of fast, inexpensive
communication and ubiquitous network access, executives
must address five key areas of adjustment:
• Capture the hearts and minds of wired
consumers.
Wilh irtstant access to nearly every company and its prod-ucts,
consumers will move firmly into the driver's seat in
the Net economy. Miss this trend and the market itself
may penalize you since another company's products and
services are only a mouse dick away.
• Reorganize distribution mectianisms.
The explosion of electronic marketplaces will revolutionize
how companies and suppliers deal with each other. Recog-nize
that every industry—including automotive, steel, and rail
transport—will align into e-marketplaces.
• Redefine price in the purchase decision.
Wore companies will tier customers to reward their best buyers
with better pricing or special incentives. Again, beware the
potential mouse click that intensifies competitive pressures.
• Change corporate cuiture and authority.
Networked workers with unlimited access to information may
compare working conditions at other organizations to their
own. Empower employees to help retain talented staffers that
are in short supply, high demand, and expensive to replace.
• Acknowiedge integration of personal
and work lives.
Anyone can communicate anywhere at any time, erasing
lines between work and home. Offer a bit of flexibility lor
personal business at the office to those staffers who work
weekends or on call.
ing becomes inbound rather
than outbound, with the cus-tomer
tdentifying himself as
immediate buyer or prospect.
4-The open-book corporation
emei^es. Enter the era of self-service.
Customers can go to
Dell's Web site to buy a PC,
or to Amazon.com for a book,
or to Office Depot for sup-plies—
even apply to a univer-sity
online. The customer is
now considered part of the
enterprise.
5- Products become commodi-ties.
The networked environ-ment
allows companies to
aggregate supply or demand,
creating the opportunity for
flexible, real-time pricing. Net
economics requires reexam-ining
a company's value
proposition and pricing to
cope with a market environ-ment
that changes moment
by moment,
6- Experience communities arise.
The collective, networked
experience and instant, global
communications will play a
greater role in individual and
corporate decisions. The cus-tomer-
focused executive will
look to electronic communi-ties
for instant feedback,
information, even guidance.
Communities can include
those for employees, distribu-tors,
business partners, or
customers.
7-Learning moves to real time,
all (he time. Companies can't
find enough talent, leading
them to create a new genera-tion
of empowered and inde-pendent
learners. With more
than 500.000 IT jobs available
in the U.S, and Europe alone,
companies will likely fill some
of them by retraining current
staff. Such efforts will move
beyond time-consuming, stan-dard
classroom-style leaming
to online instruction—ultimate-ly
becoming an ongoing, self-motivated
process- Executives
must drive this change from
the top.
In a world realizing these
cybertrends, what will the
customer of the future look
like? The customer of the
future will be not only the final
consumer of a company's
goods, but anyone with an
interest in the success of a
company. These stakehold-ers
(their fortunes tied to the
company) include employees,
distributors, suppliers, busi-ness
partners, shareholders,
and even consumers. Stake-holders
want better products
with appropriate price/value
propositions, delivered in the
most efficient manner. They
ultimately want to increase
the value of the providing
company-
The corporate leader of
the future must address this
extended enterprise, focusing
on every piece in the value
chain, which extends well
cus-tom-ers 2
beyond a current customer
set. Unlike e-business initia-tives
in the earlier days of the
commercial Internet when
companies established sepa-rate
departments or divisions,
often in search of new rev-enue
streams, current strate-gies
meld e-business into
existing business, most often
with existing management.
Gone is the separate exten-sion
that interlocked series of
relationships among cus-tomers,
employees, distribu-tors,
suppliers, and business
partners.
How can you connect with
these customers of the
future? Some companies
forge new relationships with
their customers and redefine
themselves for the online
world. Electronically distribut-ing
company brochures and
annual reports alone doesn't
suffice. The Web provides
unprecedented opportunities
for companies to interact
with traditional customers and
to create ongoing dialogue
with new customers. Similar-ly,
corporate intranets offer
unprecedented opportunities
Mike Brochu, CEO
PRIMUS
"In the old economy, organizations were extremely
process-centric, and the customer was seen as just
another step in that process. To meet the needs of
new economy, however, businesses
must transform themselves and
become customer-centric. To achieve
this, they first need to offer multiple
entry points that provide full access to
the entire organization.
Doing this requires underlying
technology that acknowledges the
customer as an active and informed
participant in the process. Primus
delivers a complete suite of software
that enables businesses to make rapidly the transition
from process-centric to customer-centric, a transition
necessary for survival,"
SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION S11

3. Executive Prep for the Net Future
Get wired, stay wired, communicate. Here's how:
• Listen to the 24-year-olds.
• Leam to use a computer.
Really well.
• Surf the Net.
• Prepare tor the opposite of what you expect.
Just in case.
• Practice saying, 'Let me send you some
information that might help you."
• Use e-mail as a primary communications medium
• Respond to all communications within 24 hours.
• Learn how to filter e-mails automatically.
• Clean up and integrate your corporate datahases
to do datamining.
• fVlemorize this phrase:
"I've got to go now.
I'm having dinner with
my kids." Use it often.
to interact with employees.
Information exchanged via
intranet can remain for inter-nal
use only, a powerful tool
for treating employees like
customers.
For optimal interface with
the supplier-distributor-part-ner
customer consider that
customer a part of the enter-prise.
Many companies rely
on suppliers, distributors, and
partners to create and track
records, even fill out their
own forms. Some organiza-tions
are leveraging brick-and-
mortar operations (not
long ago considered only lia-bilities)
to attract e-partners
or handle inventory and deliv-focused?
In addition to
accounting for cybertrends
and recognizing the breadth
of future customers, execu-tives
should accomplish three
core tasks:
1- Understand the end-to-end
nature of e-business. The sev-en
cybertrends are not inde-pendent
of one another. Look-ing
at each trend in terms of
how it interacts with the others
reinforces the idea that an e-business
Is dramatically more
than the sum of its parts.
2- Align the organization to lie
it together end to end. Because
e-business is so intercon-nected,
implementing many
of the changes it requires
© 1999 by Charles L Martin, Jr.
Reprinted with permission.
DILBERT
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Sam Reese, CEO
MILLER HEIMAN, INC.
"Be accountable for the complete solution you bring to
your customer. Your solution must help your customers
achieve their desired results, even if the solution pack-age
includes products or services that are outside your
scope of product offerings. Results drive business.
You can't iust repackage your prod-ucts
or services to look tike you are
customizing them. You may not change
your products, but you should deliver
unique solutions based on what the
customer requires every single time.
To be customer-centric, you must
incorporate customer perspective in
everything, not just products and
services, but everything Internal. Anything that touches
the customer shouid be considered your product. I'm
amazed when I see companies that consider themseives
to be very customer-centric but they have a credit form
that is totally intrusive or a biiling or collection process
that is very inconvenient. Everything that touches the
customer shouid have a customer-centric feel."
ery for e-orders. CVS. a chain
of drugstores, purchased the
online pharmaceutical mer-chant
Soma to offer cus-tomers
access to products
and prescriptions both via the
Net and in stores. When a
customer orders online from
Circuit City, the customer is
directed to the nearest store
to pick up goods.
Thanks to total, end-to-end
connectivity to organiza-tions,
all customers—from
first-time buyers to long-time
clients—can indicate desires
regarding products and ser-vices,
future needs and
wants, and likes and dislikes,
in real time. In the Net Future.
consumption can drive con-cept.
Leaders who tap into
connected consumers for
real-time feedback can use
responses to help conceive,
create, test, and enhance
new products and services.
So how does an executive
become more customer
may seem overwhelming.
Learning from mistakes
based on rapid feedback
becomes the right model in
this environment. Creating a
customer-focused enterprise
is a iourney.
3- Build around the customer.
Connectivity allows customers
to drive companies. True
visionaries will focus on serv-ing
the entire customer s e t -
customers, employees, busi-ness
partners, suppliers, dis-tributors,
shareholders. How
well organizations serve and
connect with these stakehold-ers
will determine how well
they succeed at business. •
Chuck Martin is chairman and
CEO of The Net Future Institute, a
U.S.-based think tank exploring
the future of electronic business
and the Internet. He is the author
of Net Future (f/JcGraw-Hill,
1999) and The Digital Estate
(McGraw-Hill, 1996) and a for-mer
vice president of IBM.
S14 S P E C I A L A D V E R T I S I N G S E C T I O N

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