Today's business newspapers reported that the industry leader in the logistics industry – Fedex – has made a huge loss this year. Apparently the number of consignments that they have been shipping around the world has been slipping continuously due to the steady in-roads by the digital media. With digital signatures in place, most organizations prefer to transmit documents electronically – hence hitting the traditional courier business quite hard.
Last week I was chatting with my cable operator – he mentioned that his revenues are down as most households in our colony have shifted to DTH as it offers clearer receptivity and uninterrupted service. At one point of time I used to think that the cable operator had an unshakeable business model because he was a monopoly operator in our area - the municipality used to allow only 1 cable operator in a particular area to dig up the road and lay the cables.
The other industry which is under siege is the old-world distance education institutes which used to thrive in the last decade by sending across bulky study material printed on paper to students. Most of these institutes (e.g. Brilliant Tutorials) have lost to the newer institutes who now offer on-line courses with the ability to interact with the faculty over webcams while sitting in the comforts of one’s home.
The publishing world – including giants such as the New York Times and Time – has been hemorrhaging for quite some time now – though consumer’s need for information continues to be insatiable. The publishing world actually is in a peculiar situation as they indeed did try to migrate to the digital world – but consumers seemed unwilling to accept the “pay-per-view” model that the large publications experimented with, and the advertising revenues generated in the virtual world by these publications was not sizeable enough to make up for the loss of revenues in the “real” world.
So the need – whether it is for conveying documents from one location to another, or for entertainment, or for distance learning, or for news – has not vanished. Those needs are still there and probably growing stronger. However, those businesses which did not see the impact of technology on their business models and did not change rapidly enough, have lost out in a dramatic manner to nimbler, swifter start-ups working to a different business model.
The Market Research industry – as defined by the venerable giants that define the MR industry today - is at similar cross-roads. Despite being in the information business, most of the large MR agencies have not been able to keep pace with the rapidly evolving consumers. The industry as a whole is still struggling to come to terms with a way to deal with social media – though the need for quick, reliable, cost-effective and integrated information continues to be strong.
My guess is that the next 3 years will be critical in determining the fate of the large agencies as they exist today. The question is whether we can make a rapid and deep enough change – or would we get swamped and throttled by the hordes of KPO and small tech-driven agencies which seem to be mushrooming all over, and seemingly innovating a lot faster.
The jury is out on this one…..
Last week I was chatting with my cable operator – he mentioned that his revenues are down as most households in our colony have shifted to DTH as it offers clearer receptivity and uninterrupted service. At one point of time I used to think that the cable operator had an unshakeable business model because he was a monopoly operator in our area - the municipality used to allow only 1 cable operator in a particular area to dig up the road and lay the cables.
The other industry which is under siege is the old-world distance education institutes which used to thrive in the last decade by sending across bulky study material printed on paper to students. Most of these institutes (e.g. Brilliant Tutorials) have lost to the newer institutes who now offer on-line courses with the ability to interact with the faculty over webcams while sitting in the comforts of one’s home.
The publishing world – including giants such as the New York Times and Time – has been hemorrhaging for quite some time now – though consumer’s need for information continues to be insatiable. The publishing world actually is in a peculiar situation as they indeed did try to migrate to the digital world – but consumers seemed unwilling to accept the “pay-per-view” model that the large publications experimented with, and the advertising revenues generated in the virtual world by these publications was not sizeable enough to make up for the loss of revenues in the “real” world.
So the need – whether it is for conveying documents from one location to another, or for entertainment, or for distance learning, or for news – has not vanished. Those needs are still there and probably growing stronger. However, those businesses which did not see the impact of technology on their business models and did not change rapidly enough, have lost out in a dramatic manner to nimbler, swifter start-ups working to a different business model.
The Market Research industry – as defined by the venerable giants that define the MR industry today - is at similar cross-roads. Despite being in the information business, most of the large MR agencies have not been able to keep pace with the rapidly evolving consumers. The industry as a whole is still struggling to come to terms with a way to deal with social media – though the need for quick, reliable, cost-effective and integrated information continues to be strong.
My guess is that the next 3 years will be critical in determining the fate of the large agencies as they exist today. The question is whether we can make a rapid and deep enough change – or would we get swamped and throttled by the hordes of KPO and small tech-driven agencies which seem to be mushrooming all over, and seemingly innovating a lot faster.
The jury is out on this one…..
1 comment:
Digital media has made man take decisions from the comfort of his office or home with all the benefits such as choice, intricate details of the product ,etc. And because of this convenience people have grasped this medium as a tool. And already it is coming to the situation where computer and internet are a must and people are going to assume that you have a computer and are internet connected. Soon, without a computer and internet connection one may no longer be able to do any transaction. But some areas of some businesses for some more time may still need to have human to human interaction.
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