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Mapping
the Future of eBusiness Strategy: The Experience Presented
by Northeast Consulting Resources, Inc.
Boston,
MA - May 19, 1999
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Includes a special tour of the MIT Media Lab
followed by a Reception and Dinner at the Lab
Today, the imagination and intuition of its CEO, CIO
and those who understand and are enthusiastic about
technology inspire a company’s digital presence.
Tomorrow, E-Commerce will be driven by the practices
and pragmatics of CFO's, shareholders and those who
just won't tolerate business otherwise. Any company
who uses postage stamps or who is not open twenty-four
hours per day seven-days a week is most likely at risk.
E-Commerce is no longer a blue-sky hedge against tomorrow.
It is a reality of today.
Imagine the following extreme:
retail is merely indoor advertising for what people
then buy over the web,
manufacturers deal directly in every way with consumers,
payments are made at no cost and without banks, and
sales and value-added taxes disappear because they
cannot be collected. Maybe these are not so extreme.
In fact, it is clear that retailers will have to
add value to the shopping experience. Distributors
and
wholesalers will be increasingly disintermediated
in the sale of both bits and atoms. Payments will
become
a mix of digital credit, debit and stored value systems
using both traditional and new forms of currency.
And taxes will need to be revised in accordance of
what
can and cannot be realistically tariffed in the digital
world.
The purpose of this conference
will be to visit the most current developments in
E-Commerce as well
as
revisit some of our most basic assumptions about
commerce. For example, how will E-Commerce affect
transportation
and traffic, to what degree does advertising play
a role, what value is there to add when all prices
are
the same and the lowest? In the year 2002, will
we all look back and ask ourselves why we were so
stupid
not to have seen the size of E-Commerce. Probably. back to top
Walter Bender, Associate
Director, MIT Media Lab
Michael Bove, Professor,
MIT Media Lab
George Colony, Chief Executive
Officer, Forrester Research, Inc.
Thomas Donohue, CEO, US
Chamber of Commerce
Rob Guttman, Chief Technology
Officer, Frictionless Commerce
Scott Heiferman, CEO, I-Traffic
Pattie Maes, Professor,
MIT Media Lab
Heidi Mason, Partner, Bell-Mason
Group
Chunka Mui, Partner, Diamond
Technology Partners
Charles Nesson, Professor,
Harvard Law School
Richard Schroth, CEO, Executive
Insights and TTI/Vanguard Advisory Board Member
Hal Varian, Dean, School
of Information Management and Systems, University of
California at Berkeley
Walter Wriston, Former CEO,
Citicorp & Citibank
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In a rapidly changing environment
like the world of eBusiness, the leaders that are best
able to manage uncertainty, cope with sudden change,
and take control of their corporate destiny have a
clear competitive edge. Northeast Consulting Resources,
Inc. (Northeast), the creators of Future Mapping®,
are leaders in the application of scenario planning
to the business problems of information technology
and telecommunications for both vendors and users.
They have been working on eBusiness strategy projects
since 1994. What Northeast recognizes is that multiple
vectors are developing in this field at the same time;
what is truly of value is how these development vectors
interact, not, which is "right" or "most
likely". What is knowable are a sense of the dynamics
in play 5 years from now - this understanding is what
we want to derive with the rich experience of TTI/Vanguard
members.
Northeast started mapping the
future of computing and communications 10 years ago,
providing a structured
way to talk about what will be. Their work in eBusiness
began with projects on the impact of the Internet
on publishing, including a public workshop series
on publishing.
This was followed by work on payment systems, banking,
impacts on system and software vendors and has grown
into a current series of public workshops on eBusiness
strategy.
The vectors of development will
combine in fascinating ways. How will new distribution
channels
develop
on the web? Does market segmentation on the web
work differently
than other channels? What issues will networked
smart products bring to customers, manufacturers
and service
providers? For all the powerful technology required,
isn’t it really all about enhancing relationships
at many levels between organizations? Soon we will
be able to link web order entry to ERP systems, trap
data about whole supply chains and produce maps of
funds flows, product flows, inventories, etc across
entire value chains – but who will have access
to the data and will anyone "own" it? Some
of the big winners now are direct marketing operations
like Dell but will everyone who wants your product
come to your web site to get it or are new kinds
of intermediaries needed? How to issues of scale
economies
and partnering vary across different eBusiness strategies.
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