Now or Never: How Companies Must Change to Win the Battle for Internet Consumers - Hardcover

Modahl, Mary

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0066620120 ISBN 13: 9780066620121

Publisher: Harper Business, 1999

Synopsis

The battle for the 21st century is now clear: inside, traditional brick and mortar companies are digging in for the fight of their lives; outside, a tightening circle of dot.com upstarts threaten to transform every feature of the economy. Is the war over already?

Mary Modahl thinks not; instead, she anticipates that the coming five years will be decisive--which is why companies that want to stay alive and thrive must act Now or Never.

The key to success in the brave new world of e-commerce is a deep and nuanced understanding of how consumers think about and use the Internet. Forrester Research--the world's most respected technology research firm--has developed that understanding in a groundbreaking model of consumer behavior called Technographics. For the firsttime ever, Now or Never shares the Technographics model with business people outside Forrester's exclusive client list.

Built on interviews with more than 250,000 Americans, Technographics divides consumers into ten sharply identified segments based on differing attitudes toward the Internet. That means each segment will use e-commerce in a different way and dive into buying on-line at a different pace.

Using Technographics, businesspeople--from companies that are small or large, established or brand new, traditional or dot.com--will be able to plot a well-reasoned, robust Internet strategy.

Beyond Technographics, the book also identifies and explains the startling, counterintuitive new business models that drive competition on the web. Now or Never introduces the concept of Dynamic Trade, a term that Forrester coined to describe the disruptive new way business gets done on the web.

With engaging prose that is chock-full of real stories, Modahl describes how Dynamic Trade changes the balance of supply and demand, requires companies to ramp up to scale faster ever, and zeroes out marginal cost.

As the battle for Internet dominance reaches a crisis, Now or Never stands apart. Written by a straight-talking business practitioner who knows and understands the Internet as well as anyone working today, this groundbreaking book confronts the most pressing business issue of our time with reasoned answers to the questions on the mind of every informed executive:

• When will the Internet change the way I do business?

• Why is the Internet transforming everything about the economy and competition?

• How exactly will my industry and company change, in terms of customers, competitors, cash flow, and the bottom line?

  AND

• What should I do about it right now?

About this title

About the Author

Mary Modahl is vice president of research at Forrester Research Inc., the leading provider of primary research, market analysis, and strategic guidance in the area of electronic commerce. She has been profiled in the Wall Street Journal and Wired magazine and has appeared as a guest on CBS, National Public Radio, CNN, and CNBC. Ms. Modahl lives near Boston with her husband and two children.

Reviews

Modahl, an analyst at Forrester Research, has spent the past several years researching the impact of the Internet on business, using questionnaires, focus groups and interviews. To make sense of the marketplace, she has developed a concept she calls "Technographics," an approach that examines and ranks computer users by their comfort level with technology and how likely they are to use the Internet. This scheme yields three basic users: Early Adoptees, Mainstream Users and Laggards. These groups can be further broken down into such subgroups as "Handshakers, successful professionals with low technology tolerance"; "Gadget Grabbers, lower-income consumers focused on tech-based entertainment"; and "New-Age Nurturers, affluent believers in technology for family and education." Understanding this segmentation model, argues Modahl, is vital for companies eager to remain profitable. Asked how companies should organize their Internet efforts, Modahl says the answer "depends on a company's consumer Technographics, on the speed and nature of business model change in their industry, and on the ability of the organization to fund Internet set-up costs." Writing with the authority gained from her research as well as common sense from her viewpoint as an online consumer, Modahl offers persuasive arguments for both Internet startups and existing bricks-and-mortar companies to rethink their approach to online service. 25-city-radio tour; author tour. (Dec.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Harper Business
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0066620120
• ISBN 13: 9780066620121
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 272