Exercises

E-Business Is Still Business

by Michael Bronner

I am pleased to join you today and wish to thank the Graduate Marketing Club and the Graduate MIS Club for inviting me. Whenever I am asked about my business and how I got started, I tell the story about recognizing a need and how I went about filling it. I was naive in many ways. Fortunately, this worked to my advantage because I didn't feel there were any limitations on what I could or couldn't accomplish.

I would not have been able to succeed—the company would not have been able to succeed—if it hadn't been for BU professor Ernest Wiggins.

He took me under his wing and became my mentor. He advised me... encouraged me... and helped me connect with valuable resources.

I am grateful for Professor Wiggins' help, and I am deeply appreciative of the kind of support I received from the University.

It has been an honor for me to continue my association with BU's School of Management and, in turn, show my appreciation by being involved in some of its programs.

I want to begin my talk today by making a disclaimer—I am not a prophet or a visionary. In fact, when I am sometimes asked to look into the future and comment on e-commerce and what's ahead for businesses, I think of baseball manager Casey Stengel. When a reporter asked him how his team would do in the final week of the season, he responded, "I don't make predictions—especially about the future."

But I have been fortunate in being able to build a successful company over the past 19 years. My colleagues and I have done this together by focusing not on the future but on the present. By focusing intensely on the present and serving the needs of customers, we have enabled them to stay ahead of the curve—to stay well ahead of competitors.

We have done this because of our obsession—an obsession with serving customers... not with owning them...an obsession with understanding and anticipating their needs... an obsession with being leaders in the use of new technologies that enable customers to meet their needs.

In 1980, I was a student like you. I recognized a business need that I believed could be met more effectively than the way it was being handled. What happened soon after was the beginning—not just of a company—but of a journey.

In the next 15 minutes, I want to talk about the journey... about some of the things I have learned along the way. I want to talk about the evolution of Digitas and some of the challenges its customers face in today's e-commerce environment. Those customers include General Motors, AT & T, American Express, Dell Computer, and FedEx. I also want to talk about today's e-commerce environment and make some suggestions you might want to consider in entering this environment.

But first things first.

With the media's attention on young dot-com zillionaires and the excitement surrounding e-commerce, it's easy to forget some of the fundamentals of business. Last August, in an editorial about the Internet published by CNN.com, Thomas Davenport, who is professor of management information systems in the School of Management, reminded us of this.

He was commenting on "The Fourth Channel," a term he uses to describe the Internet as a new medium of communication and how it has affected information and the emergence of an online company. He wrote, "Ultimately, e-information is still information. And e-business is still business."

Despite the dramatic rise of so many new businesses today, some things remain the same. A successful e-business, for example, begun in the year 2000 must follow some of the same principles that a successful business in the 1920s had to follow—namely it must identify a need, bring the right resources together, and then execute flawlessly. This means doing whatever it takes and using the best available technology to meet customer needs.

Establishing your own business is exciting but difficult. And there have always been opportunities to do this. If that is what you want to do today, there are more opportunities open to you than at any time in recent history.

I am curious. How many of you would like one day to start and own your own business? How many of you are interested in working an early-stage venture—an e-business start-up, for instance? How many of you are interested in working with a 5-year-old plus enterprise?

Whatever your interests are, it is important to know the e-commerce environment that you will be working in. And as you know, that environment is undergoing constant change.

One of the leading causes of this change is the Internet. I believe you probably understand this even better than I do. Not long ago, Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Novell, commented, "If you want to understand the Internet, rent, buy or borrow a teenager. Their view of technology is radically different from the rest of the culture."

Put simply, the combination of de-regulation... the impact of new Internet technologies... and the emergence of a global economy is radically transforming the business and social landscape.

Make no mistakes about it. The convergence of technologies personified through the Internet and the World Wide Web is a driving force behind the transformation of business in particular... and society in general.

If we think we have seen great changes in the past decades, we are in a state of denial. The truth is we ain't seen nothin' yet. We're at the beginning of this transformation: in baseball terms, we're in the early innings of the game.

What the Internet represents is one of the most profound changes ever to impact society—greater than the Industrial Revolution, the automobile, electricity, the telephone, radio and television. I'm not talking about the exciting—but ultimately pedestrian—things millions of people have been enabled to do as a result of the Internet: buy books and CDs easily, buy and sell stocks at lower commissions, buy airline tickets cheaply, and communicate with others via e-mail.

I'm using the word "Internet" in its broadest sense. It refers to the convergence of technologies and applications across the globe.

I use the word "Internet" guardedly because I believe in another 18 months or so, we won't be using it at all. We use the phrase "Internet economy" but sixty or seventy years ago did we ever use the phrase "telephone economy" or "radio economy"?

The word "Internet" is just too restrictive.

Whereas the reality behind the Internet is all encompassing. It includes a wide range of emerging technologies, wired and wireless devices, and many other products that make up an IT infrastructure. And, equally important, it includes a wide variety of applications that facilitate an emerging interactive network with the potential to transform people's lives.

In the very near future, the subject of public discourse will shift from the Internet and its components to what it will be enabling us to do.

Recently, when Zoe Baird, the head of a foundation which studies the future of the Internet, was interviewed by The New York Times, she echoed similar sentiments. She commented that "The Internet's capacity to have a ‘global impact in transforming culture and politics and social interaction can create a world we've never seen before in its thrilling potential...'"

To reach this potential, I believe we need to bring the Internet to the next level. I believe it has the kind of power and potential to more deeply affect people's lives to bring communities of people together... to bring nations together...

to promote understanding and tolerance;

to foster safety and security in virtually all areas of life;

to enable more scientific research on the scale, for example, of the Human Genome project;

to entertain in ways as yet undreamed of;

to truly educate people from early childhood to their waning years;

to share and distribute resources—health care, food, technology, knowledge—across the globe in times of crisis;

to bridge the gap between the franchised and the disenfranchised;

to support a global IT or e-infrastructure where business and commercial enterprises contribute to an environment that promote the common good.

Talking about the potential of the "Internet" this way may sound Utopian, but I believe it has that kind of potential.

As Dean Lataif mentioned, I am in the process of launching a Web start-up, which is the most ambitious and exciting venture in my career.

We want to take the Internet to the next level and work at fulfilling its promise of transforming lives. It is named Upromise for the moment.

We believe it will be the most significant network of the new millennium bringing together companies, information resources, products, services, educational institutions and consumers to insure the prosperity of the next generation and beyond.

Right now, I want to talk about the Internet and how it is impacting business and the career decisions you will be making as you complete your studies.

Even though the Internet now is realizing only a fraction of its potential, it is still deeply impacting all companies large and small.

CEOs and their management teams are scrambling to understand this new business environment. In a recent survey of 600 CEOs in 24 countries by The Economist, 9 out of 10 acknowledged that the Internet will reshape the global marketplace by the year 2001. Despite this acknowledgement, 6 out of 10 CEOs said their companies had not already implemented an e-business plan.

In a Business Week interview about CEOs, Thornton A. May of Cambridge Technology Partners Inc. said, "We're living in a brand new economy and some of these guys are still in the Middle Ages bleeding patients."

What we have learned over the past two decades is that the emergence of the Internet and the proliferation of technologies have caused traditional boundaries to be blurred. New rules and players have emerged, and old tried-and-true paradigms for doing business no longer work.

Just as all this is happening, you as students are faced with many choices—namely, choices centered on whether or not to work in some area within e-commerce.

You may be asking yourself many questions about how to make sense of the new e-commerce environment and succeed in it. And if old tried-and-true paradigms really aren't working, what does work?

And right about this time, you also may be thinking, "Okay, enough! We get your point: the environment is changing dramatically. But what does it all mean for me?"

I don't have the answers to these questions.

But I do have some things I want to share with you that may point to the answers—things I've learned that continue to guide me.

In preparing my remarks today, I tried to put myself in your place. I wondered about the choices you have to make as you decide which direction your career will take you. I asked myself what insights I could share with you that might be of help. I came up with five thoughts.

First, recognize that starting a business or joining a new venture can be daunting. Whatever you decide to do, do it boldly. Don't be afraid of anything, and don't let fear hold you back.

I have 20 years experience in building a large company. So do you think I'm scared?

Yes, I am scared. But I am not letting this get in the way of the venture.

I would be concerned if I weren't scared. I believe strongly in the venture I am about to launch. I have done my homework, and I am bringing in the most talented people in the country to work with me.

I have evaluated the risks and am comfortable with my decision.

    The fear I experience keeps me honest, and makes me work even harder. Fear only exists in the shadows, because I keep it in its place.

The second thought I want to share with you is to trust your instincts.

But don't confuse instincts with raw emotions like fear. Your instincts are the integration of thinking ... feeling ... and acting.

Consider for a moment what goes into the decision to join a new e-commerce venture. Trusting your instincts means asking tough questions and doing research. It means thinking things through, and integrating your thoughts with your feelings and actions.

The third thought I want to share with you is to surround yourself with great people—people you work for—people who work for you ... people who work with you.

If you are considering joining a new e-commerce enterprise, make sure the people you will be working for are solid—intelligent, open to ideas, and willing to help you grow.

Let me add one more thought here about the experience of the people you work with or for. If someone applies for a position at Digitas, we often think it's a plus if he or she has experience working at a company that has failed.

The chances are good that this person has learned more from a failed experience than someone who has been with a company that's known nothing but success. Failure can be very important if you are open to learning from it.

My final thought is this. Please don't be stressed out thinking what you need to do to find out your true career or vocation. You've got plenty of time.

Choose good companies and good people to work for, and do the best possible job you can. Opportunities will follow.

I think it can free you up to explore all kinds of exciting opportunities—from starting your own business ... to working for a new e-commerce enterprise ... to working for an established corporation or organization.

Finally, keep in mind that we are all on a journey of exploration. Along the way, we will take many roads and have any obstacles to overcome to get to where we want to go.

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