10 rules of e-business failure

[RDixon]

JACK KAPICA

Thursday, October 10, 2002



It's easy to fail in e-business; what's hard is failing magnificently.

The Big Five music recording companies have been transcendent in this respect.

Their combined efforts have gone beyond killing their e-businesses and are close to destroying an entire industry.

The following are 10 rules of e-business failure, a list inspired by the recording industry's imaginative approach:

1. Refuse to change: Computers are just tools, and useful only in making your existing marketing model more efficient. Give word processors to your secretaries and install computerized stock-tracking systems so you can lay off staff. Declare the future to have arrived. Collect your performance bonus.

2. Ignore the Internet: If you can't imagine any way of making money on-line, then no one else can, either. Act surprised when the Internet starts to carry multimedia. Cry, "Who knew?" and insist the whole multimedia thing was invented only to ruin your business.

Other 8 rules