We must be willing to risk change to keep apace with rapid change. The
key is moderation and balance, supported by enough information to allow
meaningful feedback. Going online requires adaption by management and staff
in developing the necessary skills and vision. This chapter starts with how
to use the networks to manage projects. Next, we will show you how to watch
competitors, prospects, suppliers, markets, technologies, and trends. It
winds down with marketing and sales by modem.
Project coordination
Several services offer private online conference areas to businesses. It
is an efficient solution when coordinating a group of people geographically
far apart, or when team members are constantly on the move.
 Some claim people are more
candid and meetings more efficient when they communicate online. They favor
online discussions for brainstorming and productivity tasks, even when
individuals and facilities are available for face-to-face meetings.
Applications range from tight
coordination with suppliers and subcontractors, to development of company
strategies, and new organizational structures.
Renting an online conference
area has advantages over doing it in-house: The company does not have to
buy software, hardware, expensive communications equipment. It does not need
to hire people to operate and maintain the conferencing system. The more
international the business, the better the external alternative.
Many Internet access providers
offer email based distributed conferencing for private groups.
Take it Offline offers
it for free. Some also offer interactive, live chats in private virtual meeting
rooms on the net.
For ideas about how to set
up and operate a coordination conference, study how volunteer organizations
do it. One place to check is KIDPLAN, a coordination conference used by
Kidlink.
Browse the discussion that took place
between May 8,
through May 28, 1991.
Agreeing on a time for your
meeting across time zones may also be a challenge. Check
"Agreeing on a time for your meeting" in Chapter
4 for solutions.
Making it work
Making online conferences and task force meetings work, can be a challenge.
Most of the dialog is based on the written word. The flow of information
can be strong. This may cause an information overload for some members.
To overcome this, consider
appointing a moderator-organizer for your online conference. This person:
Adds value by setting agendas; summarizing points; getting the discussion(s)
back on track; moving on to the next point; mediating debate; maintaining
address and member lists; acting as general sparkplug/motivator to keep things
flowing by making sure that contributions are acknowledged, relevant points
are noted, new members are welcomed, silent "Read-Only Members" are encouraged
to participate, and the general atmosphere is kept appropriate to the goals
of the conference/task force meeting.
Great online conferences do not just happen. Those set to get the meeting
fired up and keep the discussion rolling must work hard on it.
The meeting's organization
may depend on the number of participants, where they come from, the exclusivity
of the forum, and the goal of the meeting.
In large meetings, with free
access for outsiders, the best strategy may be to appoint a Moderator-Editor.
This person
filters contributions, gathers new information, summarizes scattered
contributions, does background research.
Filtering may be desirable when conferences are open to customers and media.
Its main purpose, however, is to help participants cope with the absolute
flow of information.
A conference can have an
educational purpose. You can bring in someone who can add value by bringing
experience and expertise to the group.
You also need someone to do
the dirty jobs everyone expects to be done - but never notices until they
are not. This person keeps the show running by serving as a benevolent tyrant,
sheriff, judge, mediator, general scapegoat, and by playing a role in setting
the general policy and atmosphere of the meeting.
To support the work, you may
use an online PIM (personal information manager) like the one offered by
AnyDay. It offers calendar, task
list, and contacts through the web.
Now, back to the 'normal'
applications of the online resource.
Watching what others do
Peter Drucker says (Forbes ASAP 8/29/94, p. 104):
"Most CEOs still believe that it's the chief information officer's job
to identify the information he requires. This is, of course, a fallacy. The
information officer is a toolmaker; the CEO is the tool user.
... the information you
need -- the really important information -- you cannot truly get from your
information system. Your information system gives you inside information.
But there are no results inside a business."
At the heart of any profit-making company is sales. No matter how wonderful
the technology or how dedicated the manufacturing staff, without sales, the
company fails. To sell products and services, you need sources for identifying
potential buyers. With a little ingenuity, you can probably create your own
list of targeted sales leads, simply using your modem.
How would cosmetics sell in
Japan? What about sneakers in Mexico? In the age of the global business
community, questions about expanding product services beyond national borders
abound.
It is safe to claim that the
best business opportunities are outside your company, in the external world.
Companies need to watch customers
and markets, find technologies to help develop and build products, research
new business actions, find new subcontractors and suppliers, people to hire,
and persons to influence to boost sales.
In this marketing age, where
sales calls cost hundreds of dollars and business-to-business marketers use
the telephone or the mails to reach prospects, maintaining complete and accurate
market lists is important.
There are many other questions:
What are our most important customers and their key people doing? What new
products are they promoting? Who are their partners? What else may influence
their willingness to buy from us?
What prices are our major
suppliers offering other buyers? Should we get other sources for supplies?
What major contracts have they received recently? Will these influence their
ability to serve our needs?
What new technologies are
available now, and how are they being used by others?
Threats are the reverse side
of opportunities. What are our competitors doing? What products and services
have they launched recently? Are they successful? What are our competitors'
weaknesses and strengths? What relationships do they maintain with our most
important customers? How is their customer support functioning, and what
methods are they using in their quality assurance?
Are new trade regulations
being introduced in important foreign markets?
Each company has its own
priorities when it comes to watching the external environment. The information
needs differ depending on what products and services are being offered, the
technological level of the company, the markets that it addresses, and more.
Needs and priorities also
differ by department and person, for example depending on whether a user
is the president, a marketing manager, product manager, sales person, or
has a position in finance or production.
Remember your priorities when
online. You cannot possibly capture and digest all information that is out
there. Your basic problem is to find the right information in the right form
at the right time.
Consider appointing an online
manager. Select and empower a central manager to oversee the process of
exploiting the online resource. A "make-things- happen" person, who can also
be a contact point for upper management.
Monitoring your own business
What kind of news about your company is being published? What do others say
about your products and services? What kind of exposure do your new product
announcements get in the media?
Maybe you will find useful
sources to monitor at
NewsCenter?
Monitoring other people's Web pages
Subscribe to
NetMind
for a short notification by email each time an identified Web page changes.
Alternatively, you can have the Web page sent you as html mail or mail
attachment. Changes in file archives (FTP addresses in URL format), and gopher
resources can also be tracked.
Hook it up to your competitors'
"What's New" or "Product Description" pages to stay current on changes. (NetMind
also markets the Enterprise Minder software for companies' intranets. It
lets you monitor competitors, internal policy changes, engineering
specifications, new product releases, almost anything that is online.)
Web2mail delivers web pages
as attachment to email whenever they change. You can also request files of
the following formats: PDF (Adobe™ Acrobat™ files), GIF, and JPG
image files. Subscriptions may be done from the web page or by email.
You can receive a web page
instantly - with or without images - by sending an email to
www@web2mail.com with the web page
you want as the subject of the message. Finally, because users only subscribe
to the best pages on the web, they offer a search engine of the pages their
users subscribe to. Use it to find fresh pages you haven't seen before. Pages
are ranked by the number of web pages mailed out, so you see the most popular
pages at the top of the list.
The Informant is a
notification service that lets you track changes in information on the Web.
You can enter several sets of keywords, like
crypto+laws+freedom+speech
At given periodic intervals, the Informant will use the Alta Vista or Lycos
search engines to find the ten Web pages that are most relevant to your keywords.
If a new page appears in the top ten, or if one of the previous top ten pages
has been updated, the Informant sends you a notification by email.
You can also enter URLs (Web
addresses) that are of particular interest to you. At given periodic intervals,
the Informant checks these Web pages, and sends you email if one or more
of them have been updated.
Upon receipt of a notification,
you can return to the Informant for a table of the Web pages that are new
or updated. The service is free. Registration is required.
Build your own, local 'database'
It does not take much effort to check one hundred different topics from multiple
online sources on a daily basis. The computer will do it for you.
You do not have to read all
stories as carefully as you would with printed material. Most experienced
users just read what is important now, and save selected parts of the retrieved
texts on local disks for later reference.
We handle printed material
differently. Most of us make notes in the margins, underline, use colors,
cut out pages and put into folders. These tricks are important, as it is
so hard to find information in a pile of papers.
Not so with electronic
information. With the right tools, you can locate information on your computer's
disk in seconds.
In seven seconds, I searched the equivalent of 2000 pages of printed text
for all occurrences of the combined search words 'SONY' and 'CD-ROM'! The
search tool was a MS-DOS shareware program called LOOKFOR . It searched 4.2
megabytes on an 80486-based notebook computer.
With Windows 95/98 on a
233 MHz Pentium, and a powerful indexing program, the search will be completed
much faster. Using AltaVista Discovery (see Chapter
14), the same search took about two seconds across over a gigabyte of
documents. It found the words in web pages and text documents. The
search could easily be extended to include my email archive.
During a typical work day, my personal "databases" usually give me more direct
value than what I have on paper, or can get online.
My disks contain megabytes
of texts retrieved from various online services, but only what I have decided
to keep. My personal databases contain more relevant information per kilobyte
than the online databases that I am using. Searching the data on my disk
often gives enough good hits to keep me from going online for more.
You will often get better results when searching your own subset of selected
online databases, than when you go online to find information. It is usually
easier and faster.
On the other hand, your in-house database will never be fully up-to-date.
Too many things happen every day.
Also, the search terms used
for your daily intake of news will never cover all future needs. Occasionally,
you have to go online to get additional information for a project, a report,
a plan.
Updating your database means
going online regularly to find supplementary information.
Regular monitoring gives the highest returns, and is required to get
an edge over your competitors.
For beginners, the best strategy is often to start with the general, and
gradually dig deeper into industry specific details. Let us review some good
hunting grounds for information, and explain how to use them.
Clipping the news
Too much to read and not enough time to read it? If you feel this way, you
are not alone. Keeping up with critical developments that affect you and
your business can be a daunting task. "Clipping" cannot do the reading for
you, but it sure can help you gather and manage business information more
efficiently.
Several online services offer
'clipping services'. They select the news that you want - 24 hours a day
- from a continuous stream of stories from newspapers, magazines, news agencies
and newsletters.
You select stories by giving
the online service a set of search terms. The hits are sent to your electronic
mailbox, for you to read at will.
Many make the news available
as soon as they have been received by satellite. The delay before used to
protect the interests of print media is disappearing. Online services usually
deliver news sooner than print media, radio and television.
'Clipping' gives an enormous
advantage. Few important details escape your attention, even if you are unable
to go online daily. The stories will stay in your mailbox until you have
read them.
'Clipping' on the Internet
Reference.COM is a personalized
conference postings delivery service that covers over 150,000 newsgroups
(Usenet), mailing lists, and Web forums. You subscribe by submitting keywords
that describe your interests. Postings that match your profiles (based on
content, no matter which conferences they fall into) will be sent you
periodically via email.
The search profiles can include
operators like AND, OR, AND NOT, WHERE ORGANIZATION CONTAINS, WHERE SUBJECT
CONTAINS, and WHERE date <=>. You can adjust the frequency of delivery,
the volume of articles, and the length of subscription.
One interesting application
of the netnews service is to find which newsgroups may or may not be covering
a subject area. When you have found the names, subscribe to those for direct
inquiries, postings of queries, to converse with experts, etc.
Institute for Scientific
Information offers an alerting service built on a Current Contents
database of over 7,000 journals, 2,000 books, and proceedings from the world's
core research literature. ISI's Coverage includes publications in the fields
of life sciences; agriculture, biology and environmental sciences; physical,
chemical and earth sciences; clinical medicine; engineering, computing and
technology; social and behavioral sciences; and the arts and humanities.
ZD Net offers a free, personalized
news service tailored to include only your favorite topics.
PointCast provides free
personalized news from Reuters. S&P
Comstock's stock ticker, SportsTicker, AccuWeather, and Variety. Select to
receive news on any of 35 industry topics.
For a modest fee,
Individual.com (see
Chapter 9) will send you a customized daily news report
right to your electronic doorstep. The report will contain the day's headlines
and news-briefs relevant to your needs. To get the full text of a selected
article, connect to the shown Web page and read it.
Clarinet allows the use of software filters
to display only messages that include certain keywords, and can subscribe
to subsets of the wire service offerings. Users' newsreaders can do some
individualized filtering as well.
Knight-Ridder's News Alert
provides fee-based filtered information from AFX (European business news),
A.M. Best, Business Wire, Comline Business News (Japanese business news),
Federal News Service, Futures World News, Global Information Network, Knight
Ridder Financial, PR Newswire, Sports
Ticker, US Newswire, and other sources. Email and fax delivery available.
World News Connection (WNC)
is a foreign news alert service from the U.S. Government. For a moderate
fee, you get access to time sensitive news gathered from thousands of foreign
media sources, including political speeches, television programs and radio
broadcasts, and articles from newspapers, periodicals, and books.
Contents include unclassified
military, political, environmental and sociological, scientific and technical
data and reports from around the world. All the material is translated into
English. Regional categories covered include: Central Eurasia, East Asia,
Near East & South Asia, China, East Europe, West Europe, Latin America,
Sub-Saharan Africa. Note: U.S. information is not included.
Some subscription plans include
clipping. Define the type of information in which you are interested. On
a daily basis, WNC will review all articles being added to the service, identify
those meeting your profile, and email them to your mailbox.
CARL (Colorado Alliance of Research
Libraries, U.S.A.) offers a table of contents alert service. Users with an
"UnCover profile" may create a list of journal titles in which they are
interested. When the next issue of any of those titles is entered into UnCover,
the table of contents will automatically be emailed to them. Ordering an
article is as easy as replying to the email message.
'Clipping' on CompuServe
CompuServe's Executive News Service (ENS) monitors
over 8,000 stories daily from sources like Deutsche Press-Agentur (Germany),
Kyodo News Service (Japan), ITAR/TASS (Russia), Xinhua News Agency (China),
Pacific Rim News Service, The Washington Post, OTC News-Alert, Reuters Financial
News Wire, Associated Press, UPI,
Reuters World Report, IDG PR Service,
Inter Press Service (IPS), Middle East News Network, European Community Report,
and Dow Jones News Service.
One of them,
Reuters, has 1,200 journalists in 120
bureaus all over the world. They write company news reports about revenues,
profits, dividends, purchases of other companies, changes in management,
and other important items for judging a company's results. They write regular
opinions about Industry, Governments, Economics, Leading indicators, and
Commerce.
Reuters also offers full-text stories
from Financial Times and other leading European
newspapers. Its Textline is a database with general and business news from
some 2,000 publications in Western and Eastern Europe, North and South America,
Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. It includes
Reuters' own news services, and translated
abstracts of stories from some 17 languages. The database reaches back more
than 10 years and is updated at around one million articles per year.
The IDG PR Service distributes
high-tech related news gathered by the staffs of IDG's magazines. The InterPress
Service covers Third World countries. The Middle East News Network integrates
the contents of 28 information sources covering this region of Asia.
The Executive News Service
lets you define up to three 'clipping folders'. Supply 'key phrases' that
define your interests. These key phrases will be used for searching stories
as they are sent. Hits will be 'clipped' and held in a folder for you to
review at your convenience. When creating a clipping folder, you set an
expiration date and specify how many days a clipped story is to be held.
To browse the contents of
a folder, select it from the menu. Stories can be listed by headlines or
leads. Select those you want to read, forward to others as email, or copy
to another folder. Delete those that you do not need.
Defining key phrases is simple.
The important thing is not to get too much, nor too little. General phrases
will give many unwanted stories while too narrow phrases will cause you to
miss pertinent stories. Example:
The phrase APPLE COMPUTERS will only clip stories that have the words
APPLE and COMPUTERS next to each other. This may be too narrow. Specifying
just APPLE or just COMPUTERS would be too broad. Entering APPLE + COMPUTERS
is a better phrase since the words can appear anywhere in the story, and
not necessarily next to each other.
ENS carries an hourly surcharge over base connect rates.
Other clipping services
Dow Jones' Interactive has a comprehensive clipping
service for business users. Sources include
Financial Times' international business reports
- grouped within primary industry segments.
Filtering may also be used
when retrieving news through QMail gateways on BBSes. For example, I use
the 1stReader program for communications with a Norwegian PCBoard BBS that
carries hundreds of newsgroups and mailing lists from Usenet, Internet, BITNET,
and other networks. By having 1stReader upload a list of keywords through
the BBS' QMail door, all new messages containing these words or phrases from
given conferences will be selectively retrieved, compressed, and downloaded.
A powerful feature!
There are also clipping offerings
on a host of other free and commercial services.
When clipping is impossible
Many services do not offer clipping. On these, you can use various methods
of regular, selective reading.
Many conferencing systems
let you select messages to read by keywords.
CompuServe's forums have efficient 'read selective'
and 'quick scan' commands. Another trick is to limit your reading to specific
message sections.
The high forum message volume
is a special problem on this service. Old messages are regularly deleted
to make room for new ones. (Often called "scroll rate.") Some popular forums
do not keep messages for more than a couple of days before letting them go.
You must visit often to get all new information.
Many bulletin boards can be
told to store unread messages about given topics in a compressed transportation
file. This file can then be retrieved at high speed. Special communication
programs (often called offline readers) and commands are available to automate
this completely.
Powerful scripts and offline
reader programs (see Chapter 12) can do automatic selection
of news stories based on the occurrence of keywords (for example, a company
name) in headlines or the messages' text.
Subscription services
It is useful to dig, dig, and dig for occurrences of the same search words,
but digging is not enough. Unless you periodically scan "the horizon," you
risk missing new trends, viewpoints and other important information.
It can be difficult to find
good sources of information that suits your needs. One trick is to watch
the reports from your clipping services. Over time, you may discover that
some sources bring more interesting stories than others. Take a closer look
at these. Consider browsing their full index of stories regularly.
If your company plans exportation
to countries in Asia, check out MARKET: ASIA PACIFIC on Brainwave for
NewsNet. The newsletter is published monthly
by W-Two Publications, Ltd., 202 The Commons, Suite 401, Ithaca, NY 14850,
U.S.A. (phone: +1-607-277-0934). Annual print subscription rate: US$279.
The index itself may be a
barometer of what goes on. Here is an example. Note the number of Words/Lines.
Do these numbers tell a story?
July 1, 1993
Head # Headline Words/Lines
------ ---------------------------------------------- -----------
1) THE PHILIPPINES IS AT A TURG POINT 616/78
2) CHINA AND KOREA WILL LEAD REGIONAL ECONOMIC BOOM 315/41
3) ASIAN COMPENSATION IS STILL LOW, BUT RISING QUICKLY 303/38
4) CONSUMER GOODS WON'T BE ALL THE CHINESE BUY 221/29
5) WOMEN BEAR THE BRUNT OF CAMBODIA'S TROUBLES 284/34
6) TAIWAN MAKES A MOVE TOWARD THE CASHLESS SOCIETY 243/29
7) TIPS ON MANAGING CULTURAL HARMONY IN ASIA 264/37
8) TAIWANESE BECOME MORE DISCERNING, HARDER TO REACH 217/27
9) DIRECT MARKETING HEADED FOR GROWTH IN SINGAPORE 205/27
10) TOURISM IN MALAYSIA WILL GROW 610/76
11) CHONGQING: FUTURE POWERHOUSE 2708/342
It is a good idea to visit Brainwave for
NewsNet to gather intelligence. Review indexes
of potentially interesting newsletters. Save them on your hard disk for future
references. You never know when they may be of use.
The newsletters within computers
and electronics bring forecasts of market trends, evaluation of hardware
and software, prices, information about IBM and other leading companies.
You will find stories about technological developments of modems, robots,
lasers, video players, graphics, and communications software.
The Management section contains
experts' evaluation of the economic climate with forecasts, information about
foreign producers for importers, tips and experiences on personal efficiency,
management of smaller companies, and office automation.
Other sections are Advertising
and Marketing, Aerospace and Aviation, Automotive, Biotechnology, Building
and Construction, Chemical, Corporate Communications, Defense, Entertainment
and Leisure, Education, Environment, Energy, Finance and Accounting, Food
and Beverage, General Business, Insurance, Investment, Health and Hospitals,
Law, Management, Manufacturing, Medicine, Office, Publishing and Broadcasting,
Real Estate, Research and Development, Social Sciences, Telecommunications,
Travel and Tourism, Transport and Shipping.
Several newsletters focus
on specific geographical areas, like:
-
THE EXPORTER (Published by Trade Data Reports. Monthly reports on the business
of exporting. Functionally divided into operations, markets, training resources,
and world trade information.)
-
SALES PROSPECTOR (Monthly prospect research reports for sales representatives
and business people interested in commercial, and institutional expansion
and relocation activity. Grouped by geographic area in the United States
and Canada.)
OPEC Daily Bulletin is a daily news report on oil prices, exploration, and
consumption.
Other newsletters focus on
technology intelligence:
Advanced Manufacturing Technology
Reports on desktop manufacturing, computer graphics, flexible automation,
computer-integrated manufacturing, and other technological advances that
help increase productivity.
High Tech Materials Alert
Reports on significant developments in high-performance materials, including
alloys, metallic whiskers, ceramic and graphite fibers, and more. Concentrates
on their fabrication, industrial applications, and potential markets.
Futuretech
Provides briefings on focused, strategic technologies that have been judged
capable of making an impact on broad industrial fronts. Includes forecasts
of marketable products and services resulting from the uncovered technology
and its potential impact on industry segments. Advanced Coating & Surface
Technology, Electronic Materials Technology News, Flame Retardancy News,
High Tech Ceramics News, Innovator's Digest, Inside R&D, Japan Science
Scan, New Technology Week, Optical Materials & Engineering News, Performance
Materials, Surface Modification Technology News, Genetic Technology News,
Battery & Ev Technology, and much more.
Databases and forums with an international
orientation
Internet users have access to thousands of sources of current government
information from around the world -- census data, Supreme Court decisions,
world health statistics, company financial reports, weather forecasts, United
Nations information, daily government press briefings and much more.
General
Country Indicators for Foreign
Policy (The CIFP project) identifies and assembles statistical
information conveying key features of the economic, political, social and
cultural environments of countries around the world. The CIFP database can
be queried in four ways: By Region - View regional snapshots, compare regions
on key indicators, obtain time-series for regional data; By Issue Area -
View top 10 and bottom 10 lists for key indicators; By Regional and Global
Organization - Collect data grouped by dozens of inter-governmental
organizations; Through the Quick Query page - Advanced users can choose the
data they need using drop-down list boxes. (Password required for access,
which is free.)
Census data
Statistiska centralbyrån (Sweden) provides
links to the government
statistics agencies of the countries of the world, broken down continents
and regions of the world and with links to international organizations.
For global demography and
population information, check this Australian resource
http://coombs.anu.edu.au/ResFacilities/DemographyPage.html.
At
http://grid2.cr.usgs.gov/globalpop/1-degree/,
you can retrieve a population database depicting the worldwide distribution
of population in a 1X1 latitude/longitude grid system. There are other global
population databases at
http://grid2.cr.usgs.gov/globalpop/1-degree/description.html
and
http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/idbnew.html.
The latter is the U.S Census Bureau's International Data Base (IDB),
a computerized source of demographic and socio-economic statistics for 227
countries and areas of the world.
Market data
World Competitiveness
On-line offers the World Competitiveness Yearbook published by
International Institute for Management Development. The Yearbook aims to
"capture in a single index the capacity of a country's economic structure
to promote growth."
The Economist Group (United Kingdom)
offers analysis and forecasts of the political, economic, and business
environment in more than 180 countries. Access to the public areas of their
web siterequires a free registration. Their full-text publications, databases
and other information are accessible by subscription only.
The European Union has a
Market Access Sectoral and
Trade Barriers Database covering over 50 countries worldwide, in
26 sectors, and 13 divisions of measurement.
Emerging Markets Companion
(http://www.emgmkts.com/) is another
window into the emerging economies of Asia, Latin America, Africa and Eastern
Europe.
The IPE mailing
list is for the discussion of international political economy. Topics
include NAFTA, regional trading blocs, trade regimes, international debt,
long cycles, historical world systems, EEC, currency and market crises, democracy
and governance in Latin and South America, Africa and Asia, commodity
negotiations.
On Usenet, check out the biz
and clari.biz hierarchies of newsgroups for leads (biz = business postings).
Many ClariNews groups cover the business and financial world.
The International Affairs
Network offers a comprehensive hypertext
guide to the worldwide
network-accessible resources available to scholars in the study of
International Affairs. The guide contains pointers within such areas as:
International Political Economy, Foreign Policy, Economic Development,
Technology, Science, and Environmental Policy, International Law, Area Studies
Resources, and more.
There is another interesting
international law resource on the World Wide Web, at
http://www.law.ecel.uwa.edu.au/intlaw/.
The Transport Web is an
information service for the international transportation industry.
Information Access Company provides
several reference and full-text databases targeted at businesses. Coverage
includes news and information on companies, industries, products, markets,
and applied technologies, and on subjects such as computers, marketing,
management, health, law, aerospace, popular culture, and scholarly research.
PROMPT (Overview of
Markets and Technology) is IAC's largest
database. It provides international coverage of companies, markets and
technologies in all industries.
Users of
Data-Star,
LEXIS-NEXIS, and
Reuters have access to international
political and economic coverage from the British Broadcasting Corporation
(BBC). Split into five regional parts across over 140 countries, Summary
of World Broadcasts makes up a daily political document, with coverage of
legislation, policy, labor issues and foreign relations. The Weekly Economic
Report covers topics such as energy, agriculture, and transportation. (BBC
is also at http://www.bbc.co.uk.)
In the Business Database Plus
at CompuServe, you can search in full-text stories
from hundres of North American and international publications for industry
and commerce.
The articles are about sales
and marketing ideas, product news, industry trends and analyses, and provide
company profiles in areas such as agriculture, manufacturing, retailing,
telecommunications, and trade. This is a partial list of the database's
magazines:
Agribusiness Worldwide, Air Cargo World, Beverage World, Beverage World Periscope
Edition, Business Perspectives, CCI-Canmaking & Canning International,
CD-ROM Librarian, Chain Store Age - General Merchandise Trends, Coal &
Synfuels Technology, Communication World, Communications Daily, Communications
International, Consultant, Cosmetic World News, Dairy Industries International,
Direct Marketing, Financial Market Trends, Financial World, Food Engineering
International, Forest Industries, Gas World, Graphic Arts Monthly, The Printing
Industry, High Technology Business, International Trade Forum, Investment
International, Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of Marketing
Research, Medical World News, OECD Economic Outlook, The Oil and Gas Journal,
Oilweek, Petroleum Economist, Plastics World, Purchasing World, Restaurant-Hotel
Design International, Seafood International, Supermarket Business Magazine,
Training: the Magazine of Human Resources Development, World Economic Outlook,
World Oil.
Trade Show Central is a large
searchable database of international trade shows.
Market research reports from
Frost & Sullivan are available through Data- Star. It produces over 250
market reports each year, in 20 industrial sectors. These reports cover results
of face-to-face interviews with manufacturers, buyers and trade association
executives, supplemented by a search and summary of secondary sources.
Ways of doing business
International
Business Practices is full text of a U.S. Department of Commerce
reference work that provides overviews of import regulations, free trade
zones, foreign investment policy, intellectual property rights, tax laws
and more in 117 countries.
Brainwave for
NewsNet has the Worldwide Business Practices
Report. It offers monthly detailed information on such country-specific
topics as business customs and protocol, negotiating tactics and bargaining
tips, marketing strategies travel recommendations, local government regulations,
social interaction and etiquette, safety and health issues.
You should also take a look at the continent related pointers listed
in Chapter 4 and 9!
Stock/financial information
The
Syndicate is filled with links to stock exchanges and financial
information around the world. Besides the usual United States links, you'll
find links to countries like Austria, Canada, Costa Rica, Finland, France,
Germany, Ghana, Hong Kong, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands,
New Zealand, Norway, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland,
Turkey, United Kingdom, and countries in Latin America.
The
Italian FINANCE
AREA page is another good source for global finance information.
For links to banks around the world, check
http://www.gwdg.de/~ifbg/bank_2.html.
Legal resources
The Foreign and
International Law Resources on the Internet page contains a long
list of annotated pointers within international law, and topical resources.
The
Lawtel subscription service
offers a fully indexed database of all official EU documents, such as case
law, adopted and proposed legislation, commission reports, commission notices
dating back to 1987, and more.
International organizations
United Nations (UN) carries
UN DPI Press Releases, General Assembly, Security Council and ECOSOC resolutions,
and more.
United Nation's Food and
Agriculture Organization (FAO) offers several searchable
databases. Their FAOSTAT Database contains extensive agricultural data from
many countries. Data is provided for production, trade, commodity supply
and demand balances, population, land use, and fisheries.
For more, try
the Official WEB Locator for the United
Nations System of Organizations. Categories on their home page include:
Alphabetical Index, Official Classification, What's New, Frequently Requested
Information, Related Information and Other International Organizations.
OECD (The Organization for Economic
Co-operation and Development) is a forum permitting governments of 29
industrialized countries to study and formulate policies in economic and
social spheres. It offers economic data on the members states, analysis of
nonmember countries, and links to statistical resources on the net.
Some other international
organizations:
How to monitor your competitors
Sales managers need to know what competitors are doing. Lacking this knowledge,
it is risky to maneuver in the market.
Start by making a strategy
for online market intelligence. Here are some practical hints:
-
Select online services that offer clipping of stories and information based
on your search words or phrases. Use such services for automatic monitoring
of stock quotes and business news.
-
Read what investment analysts and advisors write about your competitors.
Most markets are well covered by databases and other sources of information.
-
Read what competitors write about themselves. Their press releases are available
from online databases in several countries.
-
Compare your competitors with your own company and industry. Items: stock
prices, profits, revenue, etc.
-
Regularly monitor companies and their particular products.
-
Watch trend reports about your industry. Search for patterns and possible
niches.
-
Save what you find on your hard disk for future references.
Can you get everything through the online media? Of course not!
Do not expect to find production
data, production formulas, detailed outlines of a company's pension plan,
or the number of personal computers in a company. Such information rarely
finds its way to public databases.
Using the net as a marketing tool
Many companies - large and small - use the networks as a marketing instrument.
Some set up web sites to provide
technical support to customers all over the world. They offer technical
information, help, upgrade software, list of agents, technical bulletins
with lists of products, and new products. Examples:
Microsoft, Toshiba, Quarterdeck,
Digital Research, Tandy, Novell.
The Internet provides an
unparalleled way to present the image an organization wishes to project,
and to communicate all its messages to a diversity of self- selecting, interested
audiences. Businesses can also use their Internet presence as an
intelligence-gathering device, a valuable feedback loop, and an early warning
system for itself - at an amazingly low cost.
Microsoft's Knowledge base is one
example. It is a database collection of case-study examples, tips, updates
and related articles about Microsoft products. Here are some other interesting
examples to check out:
http://www.jango.com
http://www.pizzahut.com/
http://sunsolve1.sun.com
http://www.mastercard.com
http://www.americanexpress.com
http://home.eunet.no/~presno
Mind you, having a Web page has no value if nobody visits it. Make sure you
send information about your site to the net's announcement services!
First, study
"How To Announce Your New
Web Site" , WebCom's
"Publicizing Your
Web Site" - which also includes "Registration to Spanish Indexes,"
and the Internet Advertising Resource
Guide.
For discussions about Internet
Advertising/Marketing techniques, join
the I-Advertising mailing
list, and browse EPage for
advertising examples.
Other interesting places include
the Online Advertising Discussion lists (at
http://www.tenagra.com and
http://www.o-a.com/), and
The Internet-Sales Moderated Discussion
List. For a long list of Marketing-related Discussion and Announcement
Groups on the net, visit
http://www.wolfbayne.com/lists/.
Then, find a service that
can help you submit your Web address widely to the net's search engines and
directories. Here are some ideas:
http://www.openmarket.com
http://www.yahoo.com/
http://galaxy.einet.net/
Browse the "Internet Marketing"
site, and study ActivMedia's focus look at
online marketing trends.
Use the DejaNews search
engine to find newsgroups or bulletin boards related to business.
Go to the DejaNews
website, and type in the subject focus of the newsgroups that you are
seeking. Separate searches on words like trade or on commerce. After you
enter the search term it is important to change the "results type" drop down
menu to read "forums". The "match" drop down menu should remain at all and
the "archive" drop down menu should remain set at complete. Now, click on
search to create a list of relevant.
To find just buying
lists, change the drop down menu to read "for sale."
Strategic considerations
The Americans have a gift for marketing and sales by modem. You meet them
in online forums all over the world, in person or through agents, and especially
in computer oriented conferences and clubs.
Their main strategy is
reference selling. Make key customers happy, and make sure they tell
others.
In Chapter
5, I told you what happened when a member wrote about his upgrade to
a 425 megabytes hard disk in CompuServe's Toshiba forum. It made me place
my order with his preferred seller.
One common sales strategy
is to be constantly present in relevant conferences, and spend a generous
amount of time helping others. This takes time. By proving competence and
willingness to help, you build a positive personal profile. This profile
is the key to business, information about competitors and other benefits.
Another approach is to ask
for information or suggestions. It's a more benign way of publicizing yourself
than a blatant sales approach.
To drop quickly into a conference
to post an "advertisement," is a waste of time. The message may be read by
some, but chances are that you will be criticized (in public) for having
"polluted their environment" with a commercial message. On the Internet,
it is considered inappropriate to send out unsolicited information.
A North American business
person tried this approach. He posted a long sales letter to all conferences
and newsgroups that he could find. The text started like this:
Subject: Court Ordered Liquidation - Computer Memory
- CPU's & DSK Drives
Choice Trading Company, Court Appointed Liquidators, have been
assigned to liquidate the following Multi-Million Dollar inventory
of computer Memory Chips, CPU's and Hard Disk Drives. All items are
new and come with applicable manufactures warranty. Prices quoted
include all state and local taxes plus shipping and handling.
Order Cost
Number Mfg. Description (EACH)
Memory
1524 Toshiba 30 Pin Simms 1x3 70ns 1 meg $ 25.00
1525 Toshiba 30 Pin Simms 1x9 70ns 1 meg 25.00
etc.
Three days later, his mailbox was closed. Furious users had bombarded it
with everything from hate mail to megabytes of rubbish. His access provider
had to close down the account to avoid serious operational problems.
Another reason for not using
the "advertisement" strategy is that the volume of information in the best
conferences for your marketing effort probably is too high to make traditional
advertisements worthwhile.
When you distribute commercial
information, preface it with a concise summary that can be followed-up with
more detail if requested. Also, make sure that the information provided is
of significant value to readers.
If you're an entrepreneur
running a home business, visit the Usenet group at
misc.entrepreneurs.
International trade
The International Trade Network is on
the IntlTrade mailing
list. It is for advertisements of exports, imports, services, and
direct investments. Trade advertisements may be posted gratis by anyone,
and are relayed worldwide by email to subscribers in a daily digest.
You'll find a glossary of
terms used in the business of trading at
http://centrex.com/terms.html.
Electronic mail
Here is a list of other useful applications of electronic mail:
-
to distribute lists of important prospects quickly to your sales force,
-
to avoid lengthy telephone conversations,
-
to receive order information faster and more efficiently than by traditional
mail or fax (and from a larger geographical area),
-
to distribute quickly reports and memos to key people all over the world,
-
to send new prices and product announcements to customers,
-
to exchange spread sheets and analyses between users of personal computers.
|
