What is the difference between the old economy and the new economy? Nothing.
What is the difference between old-style marketing and new-style Helpfulness Marketing? Everything.
In pre-Internet days the vendor was in control. Today the consumer is in control. This switch in the dynamics of the market started on the Internet, but it is fast becoming the norm offline as well as online.
Most vendors try very hard to find out as much as possible about their prospects and clients. And then what do they do? Bombard them with old-style ads to seduce them to buy.
Smart companies do not do this. Instead, they study in depth the true needs of their customers, and if they can't supply all these needs, they COLLABORATE with other companies to help their customers.
I have two examples of this type of collaboration. One is from old business, the other is from new business.
IBM and Compaq
IBM is an old successful company, and so is Compaq. They are competitors: they both sell computer products. And yet they decided to collaborate with each other! Why? Because they both realized that their data-storage-device customers had difficulty mixing IBM and Compaq devices. So they decided to collaborate in order to help both their customers. As part of this collaboration:
- IBM resells Compaq storage devices
- Compaq resells IBM storage devices
- IBM and Compaq coordinate engineering and testing in this area
This joint venture is worth $1 billion.
International Genome Consortium and Celera
The International Genome Consortium, under the leadership of Dr. Francis S. Collins, enlisted the aid of scientists in several countries to decipher the human genome, the "book of instruction" for humans. After the project started, a private new type of company, The Celera Genomics Corp, under the leadership of J. Craig Venter, decided that it would compete with the Consortium and produce the genome map first. Venter criticized the Consortium because it was working too slowly. Celera had a better plan, he said, which would produce results first.
Whenever Collins and Venter appeared on TV, you could feel the tension between the two men.
Last week I saw the two men on television again. What a difference! They were smiling, cordial, and each talked about the work of the other!
It appears that Venter's original approach did not work out. The two outfits collaborated somewhat. Celera depended a great deal on what the Consortium produced, and the Consortium used some of the Celera techniques. Both research groups came to the same conclusion, that there are 30,000 genes (not 100,000, as was orginally supposed).
Was there still competition? Of course. But collaboration helped both groups. Celera was so much convinced of the value of collaboration that it posted the entire genome map on its website, http://www.celera.com. Scientists could access the information and then collaborate with Celera. Celera's fortunes would zoom!
Conclusion
Don't worry about what type of economy you are in. Collaborate with your competitors if you believe it would be helpful to your customers.
