Boston May 15, 2001 New rules are driving the Internet-enabled economy, and collaboration is the key to corporate survival, according to a recently published book from Delphi Group analysts.
In The X-Economy: Profiting From Instant Commerce, authors Thomas Koulopoulos and Nathaniel Palmer cite data gathered in a study of Fortune 1000 corporations as they examine the frameworks that are fueling commerce in the so-called "New Economy."
Collaborative connections are an absolute necessity for continued economic growth, says Koulopoulos, president and founder of Delphi Group. "The convergence of community, commerce and connectivity are at the heart of opportunity and business growth in the X-Economy," he says.
Koulopoulos further says that the rapid increase in the volume of transactions, the velocity of communication and the shorter duration of opportunity are producing increasingly complex communities of trade. "As our enterprises and markets become more complex, organizations need to evolve in ways [that] also increase their efficiency," the analyst argues. "Online communities and exchanges are leading that evolution."
Based on their findings, the analysts propose five rules that they say are essential to understanding the volatile markets to come. They argue that these rules can be applied to markets, innovation, efficiency and communities of trade. According to these rules, the economy today is:
- driven by demand chain, not supply chain;
- a community, not a market;
- built on trust, not transactions;
- personalized;
- instantaneous.
"The Internet opened the door to unprecedented levels of flexibility, collaboration, and speed," explains Palmer, a strategic analyst at Delphi. "The key is to harness the ability to rapidly form and reform the bonds that tie communities together. This simple strategy eliminates the lag time involved in the formation of any market. This is the essence of the X-Economy."
