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8th August 2001 The information revolution gathers pace, your organisation will be affected. Research by MORI reported by the BBC found 10 million UK homes now connected to the Net compared to 6 million last year. What is astounding about these figures is the annual growth rate. Last year, 2000, there were just 6 million UK homes with an Internet connection yet by 2001 there are 4 million more connected. There are now 166% as many home users as there were last year. Such growth rates are unheard of in many market places and this indicates the importance companies selling to the domestic market must place on an effective presence on the Internet. What this also means for formerly contented UK domestic orientated companies, selling to UK homeowners, is that their customer base can increasingly access information and purchasing opportunities from a much wider market of suppliers. The market is opening up, especially for services where the logistics issues of physical delivery are less of a constraint. The markets for mortgages, insurance, share dealing, and banking services will therefore become much less locality driven for the generations of consumers who are happy with on-line transactions. In some ways this increased Internet access, which is taking place all over the globe, could reduce imperfections in market places with people having better access to the information required to make rational decisions. Rational decision-making is one of the key requirements economists usually quote for the operation of perfect markets. This is closely linked to the availability of information to players in the market. There has certainly been a revolution in the telecom markets around the world which if anything is gathering pace with impending G3 mobile products set to add a new dimension of competition to land line operators. The chairman of AT&T said in 1999 in the Economist that consumer demand for international voice and data services is increasing 20% a year. Well it increased somewhat more in the UK in 2001 where domestic on-line access is concerned and its type is also changing. An Internet connection increasingly permits the use of IP phones where voice traffic is routed via Internet servers and the caller pays their local rate or normal ISP connection charge instead of the old full cost of the international call. Already people can make international calls at a fraction of their cost a couple of years ago, and the increased use of email rather than voice may change the income profiles of international telecom operators significantly. For businesses everywhere there are threats and opportunities, just as formerly remote businesses can now attack your previously protected clients from their international website, you can now attack theirs. It is certainly a time of change, exciting, threatening maybe but full of opportunity for the aware and aggressive organisation. Author Mark Abraham (mark@sticky-marketing.net) 8th August 2001 |
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