e-Strategy Pure and Simple
Chapter Two
The e-nigma: Page Four

Denial or Paranoia

The human being’s reactive instinct to something that is unfamiliar or unknown demonstrates itself in one of two modes: denial or paranoia.

In our view, the CEO population is currently split 50/50.

Denial: this is also called the "ostrich" reaction. Put your head in the sand and hope the event passes by. Many CEOs are doing just that. They are avoiding the Internet, hoping that it will be another fad that will pass, just like the many other management fads they have seen come and go.

Paranoia: this is the person that sees ghosts all over the place. Therefore, let’s do everything and anything we can think of.

The Internet Migration Is Inescapable

The "flood" that is today putting in jeopardy the traditional business mode actually started thirty years ago with the computerization of the back office which then migrated to the front office and now into over one billion homes in the next few years. It has been well documented that a new technology becomes "institutionalized" when it reaches a critical mass of thirty million consumers. One billion users is way past the critical mass required as well as well beyond the inflection point where a new technology starts to accelerate its impact on society. And nothing will stop this migration which means that "denial" will not solve the e-nigma.

Paranoia is not the solution either.The reason is simple. The Internet will not intrude on every part of your current business model. But it will infringe in many nooks and crannies of that model. In order to anticipate where those "points of impact" will be, one needs to understand the capabilities that the Internet brings and how these will be used by your competitors as well as how these could be used by your company. Let’s us, then, de-mystify the e-nigma.

Next Chapter in 2 weeks: Changing the e-nigma into an e-nabler. This chapter reveals the 12 basic capabilities (or e-nablers) of the Internet and how to use them to change the rules of play in your market.