‘The new but old business e-Business philosophy for the year 2001 and beyond’

(Draft – In Process)

What we know to be true?

Nothing lasts forever, especially if it seems too good to be true.  At the height of market hype, it should have been evident to any good business student that:

 

  • The rapid, almost uncontrolled, and seemingly endless growth of e-Businesses in the U.S could not continue, based solely on future speculation. To sustain and grow, every business requires active buyers and sellers doing real business – trading dollars in exchange for products or services.
  • A business which grows quickly faces a significant risk of also declining just as quickly – often due to the fickleness of the market – it simply is human nature for those who quickly join a bandwagon, based on the hype of the market or environment, to also be equally affected by negatives, and abandon that position with like speed.
  • The market moves in trends – the volatility is in direct proportion to related market environmental factors.

 

It is a common expression in business that “if it isn’t broke, then don’t fix it”.  In the e-Business market space, backed by virtually every major market research group, that meant (from 1999-2000) that the biggest future (long-term) growth opportunity would be in the Business to Business marketplaces.  Fueled by such speculation for continuous and accelerated growth (vs. graduated spikes), the majority of e-Business market plans have been aggressive and positive business cases vs. complete business plans (which include best/worst case scenarios, risk speculation, address the fickleness of the market, and include a multitude of alternative action cases ranging from disaster/emergencies to checks and balances for exceptional growth).

 

 

Enter the year 2001 – the beginning of uncertainty:

 

The availability of venture and institutional investments in new markets is directly related to (1) the ability for the new business to meet the milestones of growth in its plans, and (2) the overall growth of both directly related markets and general market conditions.  And while new e-Businesses grew proportional to the available market capital between 1999-2000, the overall transition of real transactions in these markets did not meet their transactional growth objectives.  Basically, there were plenty of new markets, many shoppers, but few real buyers.

 

Currently, the majority of the e-Business market has ground to a halt, waiting in anticipation for the market conditions to become favorable again. For the consulting and services markets which helps build e-Businesses, the costs of being in ‘hold mode’ are very high, as the major cost of operations is human talent, which must be paid for whether there is available work or not.  As a result, in the last two business quarters, over 20,000 business and technology consultants were ‘downsized’ (even by companies hereto resilient to yearly (and bi-yearly) resource allocation changes).   But is this the right thing to do?

 

  1. If the market comes back quickly (3Q/2001), then those ‘in hold mode’ will praise their waiting. It was correct to cut back, downsize, then grow back in line with the industry growth

 

  1. Yet if it does not, and continues into next year or slightly beyond, then for the e-Business industry

 

    1. This could be the beginning of a self-fulfilling process of economic decline. For those companies who react late (after 3Q/2001, typically 1-3Q/2002), and are not large and diversified enough to ‘weather the storm’, the fallout will be significant (mainly small e-Businesses). And for even the mid and largest vertical industries, not reacting early enough could translate to loosing ground in market leadership.

 

    1. The only survivors will be either:

 

                                                               i.      The largest and most stable ‘brick and mortar” B2B companies, able to absorb (spread) the costs of maintaining the core vital personnel, preparing for the eventual recovery/upswing down the road

 

                                                              ii.      The few companies who can understand how to seize and leverage the opportunity presented by the economic downturn.  To do so, they must first recognize the need for change themselves (get out of their ‘comfort zone’) and take action, and then learn how to get their clients to also go through the same process (transitioning ‘wait & hold’ postures to pro-active actions).

 

 

Setting the Stage for Change – When will the e-Business market recover – 3Q/2001 or 2-3Q/2002?

 

Most of the markets doing electronic business (e-business) are currently playing a "wait & hold" strategy, assuming perhaps incorrectly, that the US as well as global e-business market will begin recovery by 3Q/2001.  To a large extent this is based on three (3) key factors - (1) the US government reaction to stimulating the economy - related to a hopeful lowering of the interest rates, (2) the belief that the European economy and support for the e-business market will provide a 'cushion' - continuing to grow albeit slowly, and (3) that the Asian e-business markets will also help do the same.  Yet as of recent, you may or may not have noticed Intel's announcement forecast for the European markets which indicate that their speculative forecasts are now being revised to reflect ~20% less than earlier reports, as well as the fall of chip prices in the Asian market - both which indicate, at least to this author, that the optimistic belief in early recovery will not occur as planned, but has a reasonable chance of not showing positive till perhaps 1-3Q/2002.

 

[Side Note: International markets – Growing, but not fast enough:  The international market(s) are experiencing significant Internet growth, reminiscent of the U.S. markets, but much slower. The problem for the U.S. and global economies is that the international markets are not growing fast enough – at least in terms for the investor market to the US version of the Internet Business Age. – Where six months seems like a lifetime and 3 years an eternity.  Access (usage) is first to grow – content is the main user value – then utilitarian usage – all before business transactions. Growth is slower in both B2C and B2B, due to classical business impediments (lack of key local market adopters, lack of selection variety in local markets, slow but growing access by demand side, varying views on privacy/promotion/advertising including legal SPAM), Financial Impediments (ex: pricing and financial settlement arrangements in native currency formats, handling charges, etc.), Cultural Impediments (moderate consumerism, propensity to support local markets) and International impediments (ex: Native language and time support, Integrated rules for country-to-country trading business terms – from tariffs, inspection, and multi-modal transport, to policies for returns, support, financials, and arbitration).It sounds like early US e-business, namely a lot of show out there, but not enough trust by buy…. And the acceleration is steady, but slower – ours is one of the few excessive consumerism-based cultures.

 

What does this mean to the US e-Business driven economies?  For me it suggests that recovery will come, but slower and with less acceleration – perhaps targeting acceleration in the recovery to come between 1-3Q/2002.Back to Reality Check - Remember the investors in Ariba, one of the top B2B marketplace developers in Sept 2000 (with shared selling at $170+) now reporting the value at under $5 (and key market stock analysts still reporting it as attractive or neutral – in recent terms).]

 

People are creatures of habit – if what we are doing keeps working, we all tend to reinforce those patterns, so much so that even in the face of rapid change – we steadfastly march to the same tune, until faced with the ‘obvious’ need for change (survive or perish).

Each company must ask itself and its clients:

 

  • What is the chance that the e-Business economic recovery will not begin by 3Q/2001? Is it possibly as high as 25-35% or better that it could extend to 1-2Q/2002 or 2-3Q/2002?

 

  • In the event that it goes till 2-4Q/2002, what are your plans to insure survival until then?….as well as spring back when the recovery occurs (and not loose momentum)?

 

  • What are you doing today, to leverage the effects the e-Business downturn, to your advantage?

 

  • Doesn’t it seem prudent to examine the breadth and depth of your core competencies and strengths… and pick resources and business partners who offer the widest and deepest skills critical to your survival AS well as for your recovery (vs. narrow specialists for either survival or growth alone)?

 

‘Wait & Hold’ is an optimistic reaction to the pessimism of the market investors.  In other words, it feels ‘comfortable’ if one is optimistic about the 3Q/2001 recovery, to react by freezing growth, or downsizing to meeting demand.  To break the ‘wait & hold’ mode, will require a real moment of thought from your company (and your clients) into believing that things indeed, could get much worse. In fact, the level of ‘shock’ required to stimulate immediate action is survival mode, and the results, surprisingly when you get there, are very positive to your company and your clients.

 

  1. After you and your company plan for the worse possible scenario, then from there on, everything can only get better (being at the bottom, all you can go is up). 
  2. For the morale and focus of the core team, with a solid 6-9 month vs. 3-month plan for ‘survival’, the future can only be approached in a positive manner.  If things get better faster, great, but in the event that they do not, each member of the company is secure in the knowledge that they are the ‘survivors’ and things can only get better.

 

  1. You will have to ‘change’ (re-align) the solutions (approaches) that your products and services provide, to fit the market or find new markets.

 

  1. Necessity is truly the ‘mother of invention’…. And if you think that changes have been rapid to date in the e-Business space, just wait until what happens after the economic recovery begins next.  For all great periods of major business or technical invention have followed closely on the heels of a major downturn.  The need for survival is what challenged our first explorers, just as the major enhancements in medicine have followed a great plague or outbreak.

 

 

The Believe-able and Better Future Solution:  From ‘Surviving’ to Invention based on the new but old solution:

 

Now the stage is set for change…. First by stepping your company (or your client’s company) out of the comfort zone, by finally accepting the very real potential need for change.

 

  1. Plan for an extended stay in Limbo: Ask – What business products and services could we provide to help our clients survive if the economy does not recover soon? What resources will we need to provide those ‘survival’ based solutions?

 

  1. Know what you can offer: Inventory your full set of skills. Breadth brings diversity and flexibility, while Depth insures focus – Understand that breadth is just as important as depth, in being able to provide the widest offering possible. Insure the inventory include new categories outside of core skills.

 

  1. Adjust to the Economic Climate: Adjust to your behavior/approach to the market, based on their attitude towards the near future: Ask your ‘wait & hold’ clients to reflect for a moment on where their markets are going, based on the trends. If their response reflects some uncertainty - then their goal would be to insure survival

 

  1. What to Offer and When: Address commodity, time proven and other maximum impact products and services in response to ‘survival’ needs during economic downturn (i.e. The widest selection, but with a focus on commodity and big $$ impact ticket products/services)

 

  1. Leverage a Strategy for Radical Survival & Growth:

 

a.       Assure your strategy is consistent to re-align/focus and scale for broad extensions to core competencies during pessimistic periods, as well as for specialty skills when the recovery returns (i.e. the breadth of skills in survival members must be balanced requiring some billable skills in core specialties)

 

b.       A strong position across many industries is to focus on “OPTIMIZATION” solutions, as it can be applied in many ways.

 

 

Several examples follow:

 

1.        Professional Recruitment:  To my friends in the recruitment industry – be creative.  In positive economic periods, there are plenty of job orders, and the hardest problem is finding the best candidates.  But in periods of economic downturn, positions are scarce, and the toughest job is often gaining sufficient visibility.  It is easy to imagine the statistics that show for many skilled positions, as many as 200 candidates may be screened by a number of competing agencies, for a single position.  In times such as these, it is important be very effective, but do so in a very different way.

 

A.      Change how you approach the market

 

i.                     Instead of trying to gain visibility for a highly competed position, it is more prudent to explore opportunities for the same position, with every competitor who is not openly advertising for the role.  Even though you may only open up one (1) opportunity for every 10 or more calls, for those that you do open, there are very likely few to no competitors to compete with.

 

ii.                    Typically competitors seeking the same skilled resource do not try to openly compete. The rationale is simple – by directly competing, they loose the effectiveness of response.  It is typical recruitment behavior to avoid competing for the candidates’ attention.

 

B.       Change how you approach your client

 

i.                     Move up the food chain to those more directly related to your candidates, or more strategic in your client’s organization

 

ii.                    Optimize your resources: If you sense that your prospective clients business is being negatively affected by the economy, you might try point out that “while I can show you plenty of folks who have done fantastic things when the economy was on the upswing, wouldn’t it be more prudent to consider someone with broader experience, more flexible to change, who can help you to survive through the tough economic times, as well as create the ammunition for a refocused comeback when the recovery begins

 

C.       Make your Strategy complete: Focus on the optimization concept – optimize the resources and approach to your clients to match their market

 

i.                     During times of economic prosperity, focus on filling demand, with candidates qualified by the degree of alignment to the clients’ growth segments.  Open new opportunities by addressing the continued market growth and associated need for forward planning.

 

ii.                    During times of economic downturn. Focus on creating demand, with candidates qualified by breadth of industry and competitive experience, flexibility to change, as well as ability to contribute to clients’ core offerings.  Address the potential for market decline, and the need for those who can contribute more, and have more broad experience…. Help them survive and ride through the tough times, then support new market growth and methods (new ways to doing business) during times of prosperity.

 

 

2.        For my associates in e-Business Professional Services:  Companies buy professional services for two basic reasons:(a) Because of the talent, skills, focus and range of experience the consultants bring to an engagement, and (b) Because of the methodologies or process of getting from point A to B – demonstrating the leverage of documented repeatable procedures that insure complete topic coverage and lower the risks.  Yet in the overly positive market growth, completeness of business planning often gave way to the rush to be first.  Now is the time to help clients move ahead aggressively, but in a structured and well-planned manner which reflects our deeper understanding of the marketplace, with progressive milestones balancing business justification to growth.

 

A.      Change how you approach the market:

                                                                     i.                        Pick a major growing market, that even within the economic downturn, still continues to grow, albeit slower than in prosperous times (ex: A good example for any Professional Services company is the “Outsourcing” market, which continues to grow, albeit slower in times of economic downturn. Aggregated specialized services are inherently more efficient in their operation, trading their competitive edge for optimized utilization of more expensive skills, and flexible staffing for lesser skilled employees).

 

                                                                    ii.                        Address a segment of that growing market audience, which cannot take advantage of the benefits of mainstream market solutions, but clearly needs the benefits and would like to do so (ex: the largest outsourcing opportunities, where the prospect can not directly outsource their operations).

 

B.       Change how you approach your clients:

 

                                                                     i.                        Move up the food chain related to your breadth of strategic offerings.  In times of economic downturn, focus your attention on the most senior financial contact.  This positioning is critical to securing strong cost justification, controlling expectations, and stabilizing the project risks.

 

                                                                    ii.                        Change your approach:  If you talk the ever positive, ever-growing Internet, and the rush to get to market, your audience may listen with skepticism.  But if your client is a typical “wait & hold” type, you must initiate the need for change.  Discuss the effects on the competitors’ business, and then establish the potential position that the market downturn could continue.  Once the prospect acknowledges the need to be pro-active in leveraging a survival-based solution, this opens the door to providing services which cut losses, or directly cut costs, or focus on customer retention – all ‘survival-based’ solutions, easily justified in terms of low risk, and measurable consistent additions to the bottom line of the client.

 

                                                                  iii.                        Change your offering – often the biggest exercise is re-aligning and diversifying the offering:  For professional service businesses focused hereto in the development of ‘new’ e-business initiatives, the new goal should temporarily shift to ‘survival’ services.  In economic downturn markets, services which directly help reduce the bottom line such as those that better leverage existing resources (reuse, data-mining, logistics), cut losses (better management, order/customer attrition), directly reduce costs, or increase downstream value (better service for no cost increase, same services for less) are still in high demand.  Match the breadth of your offerings to your organization and market demand.

 

C.       Make your Strategy Complete…Focus on the “Optimization” concept:  It provides an approach or strategy flexible to changes in the economy, and automatically reacts with the most appropriate sub-strategy, by matching the market swing to the core sub-strategies.  Sub-strategies include:

 

                                                                     i.                        Enhancements to current operations (ex: improvement for easier maintenance during slow or bad times, or new e-Business initiatives during prosperous times)

 

                                                                    ii.                        Streamlining/Integrations between existing systems (ex: providing improved efficiency and more effective cost distributions during good or bad times… benefits are often services which cut losses, or better leverage resources)

 

                                                                  iii.                        Cost Reduction:  A combination of changes to business processes and technology utilization to lower costs (the most classically understood IT justifications) are especially important in economic downturns.  What we learned in times of economic prosperity was the fleeting nature of business investments, in sectors that grow faster, than the fundamental business models that support their growth.  Cost savings are easy to measure, and affect the bottom line of the business – i.e. one dollar saved is like a dollar earned.

 

On the other hand, building proper financial justification for new business initiatives is much more difficult that justifying cost savings.  The “easy” way is to envision it just like cost savings – but that is also why so many business investments were overly optimistic last year.  Whereas cost reductions affect the company’s bottom line dollar for dollar, new business projects need to, on the average, create a minimum of five (5) times the business volume to justify their expenditure.  This is based on an average 20% profit – thus to be able to spend an additional dollar, if your profit margin is 20%, then you must sell five dollars worth of new goods.  And in industries with lower margin, you must sell even more new business.  To compound this, if you are replacing channels between the producer and consumer of goods (internally or externally), you must not only fully replace the “value” which the channels provided formerly, but in addition solve specific industry problems (or pain points) in order to achieve a high enough ‘bundle of value’ so as to shift buyer behavior.  And in the B2B market space, which focuses on recurring similar purchases, this is even more important.

 

                                                                  iv.                        Leveraging what they already have and didn’t know they have– a good example of this principle is in data mining, where through such technologies as neural net, a company can often find an existing but formerly unrecognized niche market, which if approached by marketing/sales can not only establish a focused market for new growth, but can also be effective against the competition

 

 

3.        My Personal Lifestyle move to Portland, Oregon: Back in Control – Linked close to our family move to Portland, is the sincere personal desire to share the successful balance between “an aggressive professional – business – technical lifestyle” and “the closeness of family ties and the memories of a life time”.  Being a “road warrior” consultant, the most memorable ‘quality-time’ is not about just being around the family outside of work (downtime), but rather the time involved in sharing activities together that are also personally (perhaps selfishly) rewarding.  These range from activities which you would do alone because you like them so much, but are equally rewarding when you share them with others TO activities you would not like to do alone, but do easily together – reinforcing the need to work together and the respect for each other as you contribute to a common objective.  But the most memorable activities are those, which are unique – available only because of a personal relationship – special in that they cannot be bought otherwise.

 

To this end, I intend to take at least a few weeks each year, to share this opportunity with other senior business and technical executives.  Many folks over the years have helped me shape the balance of my life, and though many are richer financially than me, few could claim to have achieved such a rich balance between professional and personal success.  Nothing would give me more satisfaction that helping an otherwise successful executive; achieve the balance of a rich personal lifestyle, so often lost to the struggles and requirements of professional employment.  Hopefully, by learning that the richest personal memories are ones we share together in activities (vs. proximity), each person I influence will gain new perspectives that will make the overall balance of their lives richer.

 

Changing Life-Style – How I approach life between work and play:  It is the story about the events that influenced me to seek a new personal strategy to achieve my personal objectives.  The real lesson, however, is about how your attitude and behavior changes virtually overnight, when your new strategy makes to your goals tangible and attainable in the short run.

 

i.                     Road Warrior

 

People are creatures of habit – if it seems to keep working, we all tend to reinforce those patterns, so much so that even in the face of rapid change – we steadfastly march to the same tune, until faced with the ‘obvious’ need for change (or die).

 

Until the 3rd Q of the year 2000, for me, things couldn’t seem to be going better, with any apparent slowdown, due my specific talents in the market.  My background is both broad and deep in business strategy and planning, as well as from high level architecture, to the depths of IT development and implementation (and covers a plethora of industries).  Seemingly at the top of my profession, billing at over $500/hr, with multiple future prospects always in tow, it seemed like the future was endless and bright.  Over the last 20 years, I had always followed new opportunities, which offered a combination of challenge and rich financial payouts.

 

And even though I was a true road warrior, spending the full week on the road, I’d had mastered leading a rich personal life, by understanding that the limited time I had with my family had to be more than just being there when they needed me (as I wasn’t most of the time), but rather in activities which both interested me personally, but as well were the common activities which brought my family closer.

Yet because we had always moved as a result of ‘the job’, the location where we temporarily settled was never optimized to best fit to this lifestyle of common personal and family activities that make our lives (and memories) richer.

 

ii.                    Long-term goals and personal influences

 

Long-term goals are the ones most people seek but rarely attain because they seem so far away and intangible.  They are like the large and global company objectives, which direct the path, but are rarely clear and measurable enough to be the foundation of day-to-day thinking.  And for me, it had always been easier to follow “the job” opportunities, hoping that someday I would eventually be placed, or place myself, in the best location which would balance my professional interests and talents with my personal “downtime” activities.

 

The justification for following opportunities (strategy) was based on a desire to provide the richest lifestyle for his family possible.  And concurrently, my long term goal was to settle permanently in a location (before my children went away to college if possible), which would have the same attraction of personal and family richness, such that I could count of them always desiring to return at least once a year (the more seasons the better to increase those chances).

 

Similar to the lives of those who seem quite successful, there had been great tragedy three years prior…. Marked by the death of the family’s youngest and closest daughter – an event which effectively left each member numb – but tied by a common agreement to not make any radical change for at least three (3) years – we knew such change would be reactionary, rather than accepting of the event and well thought-thru.  Since her death, we haven’t been nearly as active in the activities we all loved and shared together – namely skiing, horseback riding, and whitewater rafting.  Of the three activities, the one we remember best is her love of skiing, and each year we ‘toast’ off to her in a quiet family moment of reflection at the highest peak we can find, before hitting the trails.  Our home in Raleigh has also become an uncomfortable spot – maintaining a grip with painful memories.

 

We travel all over the northern hemisphere in search of interesting places and activities for our vacations, but always ski over the winter holidays (Christmas day is almost always a resort affair).  Although we have spent a lot of time on the west coast, last year we found a spot, with four radically different climates, all within a circle of ~1-1.5 hours, which provided for every personal and family interest.  In what started as a joke, my wife suggested that we go skiing in the Peruvian Andes for the summer.  Unfortunately as the planning term was short, I knew that we would not be able to get the kids’ passports ready in time, so I began to seek US-based locations to ski in the summer, only to find that Mt. Hood (1 hr. out of Portland, Oregon) was the summer home of the US Ski Team, closing only 3 weeks in September for maintenance.

 

We (the family) also enjoy horseback riding, and until the death of my daughter, owned ~20% stake in a horse ranch in West Virginia.  On weekends, we often used to take the 5-hour drive to the ranch, and just saddle up a few horses, and go off for 4-5 hours rides in the rich mountains and valleys there.  As a result, I sought to find a nearby ranch for this activity, and ended up conversing with a very unusual rancher.  His family had been in the business for several generations, and although he only owned ~300 acres himself, his leased property rights ran over the original Oregon Trail.

We eventually arranged to have a personal tour of the properties for 4 days, running some 40-45 miles per day over the picturesque landscape, often running upwards of 105 degrees (in the shade and very dry), but the experience was worth a lifetime.  Access to deserted early western towns, finding original wagons still stuck in the mud, running into 3-4 foot volcanic ‘projectiles’ (issued by the local volcanoes – ex: Mt. Hood, Mt. Jefferson – in the west coast mountain developments of time) in the fields, viewing breath-taking surroundings, cantering/galloping over the plains, learning to adjust your riding style for horses used in cattle drives vs. sophisticated riding, eating hearty meals after a long hard day, sleeping under the stars, and mixed with the local stories were definitely a lifetime set of memories for us.

 

And the alignment of other activities never seemed to stop.  My wife, a lover and grower of unusual roses, would have spent several days in the gardens of Portland, famous for the humid conditions, but almost always flavored with a ocean breeze.  And being a quilting fanatic, she couldn’t be happier at the well-stocked shops or the yearly world-renowned Sisters Oregon festival.  The culture in Portland was rich, but we spent the majority of our vacation time involved in skiing (during the summer in tee shirts and shorts), riding, white-water rafting, fishing, long quiet nature walks, or lounging in the natural hot springs.

 

iii.                  Changing marketplace

 

In reaction to the beginning of today’s market downturn for e-Business (4Q/2000), I found myself again repositioning my most leverage-able skills to secure the best opportunity for 2001 – 2002.Although the market had slowed somewhat, the overall demand was still high… yet each offer was not focused in my area of expertise (mixing e-Business strategy for Net Market growth with the latest technical architectures) as my last position – i.e. it did not feel “comfortable”.  Continuing in the same habits, which had always allowed me to positively progress in each subsequent position, I turned down several offers – rationalizing that each did not provide more professional challenge or financial reward.

 

The market continued to decline, and several lucrative and challenging opportunities - which had been moving progressively – suddenly, were put ‘on hold’.  At the same time, I began noting other market events, which indicated the need to for change – for my own approach, as well as the e-Business market.  For one thing, motivational speakers of the “Rah, Rah…. The future of Internet is here, growing, and to win you have to build it quickly” suddenly… were beginning to fall out of favor, and a new breed of speakers were gaining wide acceptance…. Often by speaking about a personal or business tragedy…. from the depths of despair, they were forced to choose between giving up (and possibly taking a radical change to something completely new, starting from scratch), or somehow finding through necessity, the creativity, hope and inspiration of re-engineering their lives such that the result not only allowed them to ‘spring back’, but continue with a momentum to excel beyond what they had hereto believed possible from their former positions/lives.

 

A last contributing alert to the changing times was my cousins’ move and the valuation of my real estate investment (my house and property).  Being very intelligent in financial business, my cousins, with a two generation home in Great Neck, NY, and the ownership of the most successful insurance and real estate business in Chinatown NY, suddenly sold everything at the height of last years economic frenzy, and moved to San Francisco, where they re-established a new office there as well as one in Shanghai China.  Currently they are renting and watching the prices fall (more quickly in SF than almost anywhere currently in the US) daily, and will most likely buy again, when they feel the market has hit bottom.  In a similar situation, I purchased my home in Raleigh (with 3.5 acres and a large brick house), just in the early stages of the last 5-year growth spur.  Since which time, the town had doubled in size, and my once rural setting has been transformed, including two up-scaled complexes close by, with larger properties, starting from $450-500K.  And although my home is older, with its’ large conditioned road front property, it has appreciated significantly.  The big concern now is how the market may begin to fall like in San Francisco, although with IBM here, it should be stable somewhat longer.

 

iv.                  New Strategy:

 

In times of uncertainty, plan for the worst-case but still focus on attaining an important objective.  Think immediate survival first, then about a path (strategy), which rapidly gets you to from where you are starting (survival) to a clear future goal.

 

Planning for the worst times professionally requires that you take a full stock of your skills and experiences, determine which ones are in demand on the market, and re-align and re-focus your energies on delivering the most effective mix.  And while my broad and deep business and technical background provided me with breadth, I was still caught up (habits) trying to leverage those skills that had been in greatest demand during the prosperous times.  But now few opportunities were ‘buying into’ building new e-Business directives.

 

I was not worried that I could find work, per se (survival), but a unique interview for a position showed me just how my skills (as well as those for any wide professional services firm) could serve the market, and do so consistently with the same message during times of economic prosperity or downturn.  The opportunity was to address a lucrative segment of the outsourcing market (which continues to grow, albeit slower during economic downturns, and stands today at $67 Billion/yr)…. Namely those large prospects for outsourcing, who for one reason or another (mostly cultural/political) cannot use a standard outsourcing solution, but clearly want to and understand the benefits.  With a focus on a reasonable (and un-addressed) slice of a large market, the solution is to provide the service benefits of outsourcing, without accepting a standard outsource solution…. And the approach is not to provide “new” solutions, but rather “IT Optimized” ones.  The beauty of the approaching the client under the “Optimization” banner is that is provides a framework for a family of solutions, which can be used effectively during times of economic downturn or upswing/prosperity.

 

a.                    Enhancements

 

b.                   Streamlining/Integrations

 

c.                    Cost Reduction:  the most classically understood IT justifications

 

d.                   Leveraging what they already have and didn’t know they had

 

It was at this point, with:

 

(1)                 Few active prospects focused on building new e-Businesses (an obvious low point for me professionally),

 

(2)                 Growing indications that recovery by 3Q/2001 is not a sure thing,

 

(3)                 A personal assessment of my skills showing that ‘finding a job’ – especially if I was willing to lead the ‘road warrior’ life style which most cannot, from a strong home-base – would not be difficult, provided I was flexible,

 

(4)                 A realization that my investment (house and property) might soon be also on a downswing, and

 

(5)                 The growing ‘feeling’ that once again, the need for survival and ‘the job’, would cause us to move based on ‘the opportunity’ (possibly once again also shifting us away from our favorite activities),

 

I suddenly awoke, after experiencing a Paradigm shift in my overall life-style strategy.  It was like awakening after many years, from the sleepwalking state (representing the habits of a lifetime), to being fully awake (and in control of my future destiny).

 

I realized how fortunate it was to have a lifestyle, which allowed me to work guilt free, as many hours of the day as needed, in a focused manner with my clients.  It was ‘guilt-free’ because I was always confident about the richness of my personal and family interests – having learned that the memories of a lifetime are based on the sharing of common personal activities that the family shares.  And to that end, it became clear that we should live in an area of the country, which provides close access to the greatest variety of activities that we all enjoy personally, but also share as a family together – and the answer was Portland, Oregon.

 

The realization of how positive the move will be for each of us (in the family) individually, as well as the bonus to our family happiness (continually building and sharing the memories of a lifetime) has now super-charged our motivations and future plans.  It has crystallized the goal by making it very tangible, and now shapes our daily actions to insure that we will get there, and soon.  Each day, we work together, laughing through the toughest tasks, and come closer as we share and plan our future together.  Furthermore, it also opens up in each of us, the willingness to respond more flexibly to change, and has brought a new awareness of how we can and must each change our daily behavior, so that we are focused on a common goal.

 

Another benefit of consciously changing your behavior for the attainment of a critical (but formerly less clear and tangible) goal is that, with as much new energy and inspiration as the experience brings, so does it provide a true ‘calming’ effect.  Life is too filled with uncertainties – the calming is a result of the inner confidence that a really important goal will be met.

 

The real lesson I learned was that “as long you continue to maintain a particular attitude (based on unconsciously letting your good and bad habit interact with the dynamics of the business marketplace), you may literally get what you expect”. But as soon as you make positive plans to achieve a long term goal, and position your actions so as to insure attainment (unable to backup)– the satisfaction, energy, calming effect and new possibilities which present themselves, are virtually endless.

 

In the same way, businesses in the e-Business market space, faced with real uncertainty as to when market recovery will occur, need to literally envision themselves in the worst case scenario but still with firm plans for future growth.  While the end solution set will be different for each business in their respective industries, the road for many in professional service companies will be to focus on the concept of “optimizing” businesses vs. building new businesses.  For those most clients most deeply affected by the economy, the focus should shift to ‘survival’ services that directly help reduce the bottom line (ex: Services which better leverage existing resources (reuse, data-mining, logistics), or cut losses (better management, order/customer attrition)).

 

“The Big Message”

With the e-Business/IT economy in the crapper, and earliest prospects for strong recovery targeted at earliest for 3rd Q/2001 (probably not until 1st-2ndQ/2002), this is not the time to play a ‘Wait and Hold’ strategy, but rather a time for renewed awareness, disaster planning, and the evolution of a new and better strategy which effectively addresses not only the current economic situation, but is interactive and consistent to leverage capabilities for today, as well as when the market recovers – Create a Recession proof business strategy.