Check Your E-Relevance

In a recent meeting with yet another imaging vendor recasting itself as an e-business technology provider, I was told that this company’s old client base was in danger of being marginalized on the sidelines of the new economy. Yes, the middle-aged managers who implemented technology-enabled downsizings and business reengineerings in the early- to mid-1990s were now being eclipsed by a new generation of leaders.

“They’re in their 20s and early 30s, and they’re more likely to wear pony tails and nose rings than neckties and shoulder pads,” I was informed by this 30-something marketing executive. “They don’t know the meaning of the word ‘no,’ and whether it’s from the boardroom or the beach, they’re reinventing the way companies do business — and they’re doing it in a matter of six to 12 months rather than two to five years.”

I stifled a laugh, straightened my face — and my necktie — and urged him to go on.

“The people we’ve traditionally dealt with are mystified that these young men and women are getting all the attention within their own companies, and they’re tired of upstart dot-com competitors getting all the attention from the press,” he elaborated.

Okay, so there was some truth in his observation (though I know a few “geezers” with more business moxie and Web savvy than any GenXer I’ve ever met). There’s no doubt that the Internet is the center of the universe when it comes to venture capital, IT budgets and senior executive interest. Even NASDAQ’s mid-April swoon did little to cool the general Web fervor.

The Internet is also the darling of media attention, and this publication is no different in this regard. We go out of our way to find Web-centric stories, and we run them prominently. This month’s insurance cover story, for example, highlights two companies that are taking direct-to-consumer and agency-based sales approaches online.

Do you feel like an outsider when it comes to your company’s Web strategy or your industry’s e-business future? The Delphi Group of Boston recently polled 600 Fortune 1,000 executives, and it found that only about 30 percent were truly “e-active” (see “Crossing the Barriers to E-Activity”). There’s more than one digital divide, they found, and it has more to do with corporate culture than access to technology.

I’m not suggesting that you sprout a goatee and buy a motorized skate board, but it wouldn’t hurt to check certain attitudes at the door. Comments like “we’ve always done it that way” should be a warning sign.

In a meeting with another vendor recently, I asked if they had integrated electronic forms with their workflow. “No,” they responded. “We find that the majority of our customers’ transactions are still on paper.”

“And they will continue to be so,” I responded, “unless you offer them a paperless alternative.”

Any e-active exec worth his or her salt would dump this vendor rather than wait for them to get with it. Remember that speed to market counts for more than “not invented here,” so partnerships and outsourcing are a must, not alternatives of last resort. If you (or your vendors) are waiting for standards, formal policies or memos from on high saying “here’s how we’re going to become an e-business,” you probably won’t be on the team that ends up reinventing the company.

While you need the right attitude, don’t dismiss your “old-economy” credentials. In its annual survey of high-tech salaries, Information Week concluded that the current market is demanding “the skills needed to adopt a company’s core business operations to the Internet.” That means a mix of talent is needed to architect and knit together telecom, Web servers and legacy applications into effective e-business solutions.

—Doug Henschen, Editor-in-Chief