Admin
Admin
Posts : 193
Join date : 2011-01-09
 | | Subject: The e-commerce savvy manager Tue Jan 18, 2011 12:48 pm | |
| The e-commerce savvy manager
******
To successfully manage a business in the e-commerce era, all
of the traditional skills will still be necessary: marketing,
finance, personnel administration, etc. will still be vital.
The additional new skills needed will be:
•A good understanding of how the www works.
•Flexibility of mind to follow (or better, produce) the quick
changes which are taking place in this environment. These
changes are technological as well as cultural, social and
economical.
The new mentality
Although the traditional skills will still be necessary, many of
the basic assumptions a manager could make until a short
time ago will have to change.
Let's look at some examples of concepts that do not
work anymore:
•"I can charge a higher price than some of my competitors,
based on the fact that the customer has no easy way to find
my competitors and look at their prices."
No way! The web did away with this inability of the
customer to compare prices.
•"Since I deliver to the customer's door, they can not
purchase from a far-away supplier."
Forget it: UPS, Federal Express, etc. will deliver door to
door in 24 hours from one corner of the world to the
other.
•"I can afford a few unsatisfied customers, since they have
no way to communicate their complaints to my mass of
customers and prospects."
Silly! One single unhappy customer can post his
complaint on the web and let thousands know. Recently
in Japan a buyer of a Toshiba video recorder, unhappy with
the way the company ignored his request for service, posted
this complaint in the web. He got 6.3m hits a day as other
customers added their complaints. Toshiba sued but last June
the courts ruled in favor of the customer. The company
publicly apologized.
•"I manage a giant chain of retail stores. No way a
competitor can be a menace, the amount of capital needed
would be too large."
Ha! Just look at how Amazon.com put Barnes & Noble
in a tight spot in a short time.  | |
|
Calendar