Dean Michael Berris

One of the best modern inventions of man was the concept of travel -- aside from birds who have built it into their DNA and species propagation strategy to travel, man has been the foremost expert in moving around. The side effect to this travel bug that has hit us is that the time in between getting from one place to another seems to turn idle. So what does man do to stop himself from idling? Sleep. Eh, wrong answer -- read. So man made travelling more interesting by coming up with books worth reading while you're in transit. I'm pretty sure that's not the motivation for man to come up with the book, but I'm sticking to my story.

Last week I posted my reading list of three books -- of the three I've already read one, and am halfway through the second one. And here are some insights I intend to share with the world at large:

Unleashing the Killer App

Reading Groups, Retro StyleSo this book was about how to come up with a digital strategy. I know right, what I am I doing reading something that was written for the traditional pointy-haired-boss to give them a clue about digital strategies? I asked myself the same question while I was reading the first few pages of the book. Granted that this was written in the late nineties when people were largely still on dialup and maybe some on ISDN links maybe before DSLs were the craze, apparently it was a good read because it opened my eyes into how people did or didn't think about having a digital strategy during that time.

After that initial self-deprecating shock that I'm reading a book meant for executives, I opened my mind and read through the business stuff about strategy and how to compete using technology. Surprisingly there's a lot to be learned in this little book. Some of my favorite examples of digital strategies are:

• Destroy your value chain
• Cannibalize your own market to prevent others from doing so
• Technology leads to Strategy, not the other way around
• Don't wait for the future, make your own future
• Treat your assets as liabilities
• Just Do It

Sounds like the words from radicals trying to tell the suits that "you're all doing things wrong" right? After all, business has always been about ROI, long term strategy, sustainability, and predictability. Traditional business has always been about 5-year plans and creating value chains and maintaining or growing your distribution network. Maybe some enterprising individuals will recognize the value of "brand" but then it's all always been about the money and protecting your turf (i.e. investments and profit).

Well the Internet broke everything down for us in the past decade. Instead of seeing more superstores, you start seeing the superstores to move online selling goods through the Internet (in the US). Now it makes very little more sense to buy anything by going to a physical store and then going through the hassle of driving and then choosing which brand of something to buy. It's now been relegated to nostalgic novelty -- the experience of buying something is not the same anymore.There goes your value chain.

Industries like the newspaper businesses have cannibalized their own markets and down sized the industry by a whole lot because of the Internet and being in it. What the Internet can give -- easier linking to relevant information, more context and relevant multimedia content side by side with articles, and a practically infinite archive to store years' worth of articles available on demand -- has basically rendered the newspapers obsolete. And the people making them obsolete are people like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. They cannibalized their own markets before anybody else could.

There are lot more anecdotes and examples in the book that makes it a worthwhile read even if you're a geek or you already think you're adept at the Internet business models. Just remember though that this book was written a few years ago already -- but surprisingly the lessons and the pointers still hold today.

Relevance in the Philippine Setting

 How this applies to the Philippines you ask? Well, if you look at the trends, the Philippines is usually at least 5 years behind the US in terms of technology adoption. I remember a friend of mine told me this which gives enterprising people here in the Philippines a good incentive to "bet" on the current trend elsewhere to be big here. So if you're doing business in the Philippines, maybe you'll want to look into getting into the Internet business sooner than later because you just might miss the boat when it leaves the harbor at this time.

One thing that still needs to happen fully and become realized is the Internet Ubiquity question here. For one thing, I think it's still too expensive to get online here in the Philippines. And although it's been cool to access the Internet through mobile for quite a while already, it's still not enough to make the Internet in the Philippines the great equalizer (or business destroyer, or king-maker depending on how you look at it) that it can definitely be.

So if you're actually in the position to be an Internet enabler in the country, I'd say build your business to leverage the Internet first, then once you're doing business online already then break the rules and blow the access problem wide open. After all, this is what the big and successful global brands are already doing:be the disruption especially in your own market.