Technotrends: How To Use Technology To Go Beyond Your Competition
by Daniel Burrus

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If there's one critical component in your success tomorrow, it's how you think about the future today. Over the next five years, because of recent technological advances, the pace of change will accelerate astronomically. Don't do what many sales and marketing professionals do -- wait until their competition outstrips them before they admit they need to make a change, too -- instead, use the forces that are driving permanent change to your competitive advantage. Here are four new rules that you can use to give you the edge:

• Past success is your worst enemy.
• Give customers the ability to do what they can't do, but would have wanted to do if only they knew they could.
• Time is the currency of the nineties and beyond.
• Leverage time with technology.

The tool box of the twenty-first century is already invented! Interactive television, on-line services, multimedia computers, desktop videoconferencing, electronic data interchange (EDI), and advanced simulations are just a few of the new tools that are shaping how we market and sell our products. These new tools allow us to do what was previously impossible.

Our greatest opportunity and challenge lies in our willingness to become twenty-first century craftsman -- regardless of our age and technical expertise. A twenty-first century craftsman does not have to be a technologist. You don't have to know the physics of a telephone in order to use it. You have to be aware of the existence of the new tools and creatively apply them to what you would ideally want to do.

Using twenty-first century tools with a twentieth century mind-set can get you into trouble fast. Just as technology is undergoing a revolution, the rules that govern those who use it in their business are also being redefined. Once you start using a fax, a pager, contact management software, or a cellular phone, the way you do business is changed forever. The new tools that are just now becoming available will cause far more opportunity and change than you have ever experienced -- and all over the next five short years!

What's wrong with the technologies and rules of yesterday? Didn't they create the success we experience today? Just remember that anyone's cash cow can be stolen. If your strategic view of the future does not include the toolbox of the twenty-first century, your business may be rendered obsolete by the end of the decade! Don't be complacent and think you've got a lock on the market. It can be picked at any time by your competition. In the 1980s Xerox prided itself on having one of the best service departments in the world. What happened? Canon's engineers used technology to put all the parts that require frequent service into a disposable toner cartridge, largely eliminating the need for service! They redefined the rules of the game -- and allowed their sales team to intercept the winning pass.

What's interesting about Canon's development is that they didn't wait for customers to ask for it. Customers did not ask GE Appliances to invent the self-cleaning oven, either. The principle at work is: Giving customers the ability to do what they couldn't do, but would have wanted to do if only they'd known they could. Instead of asking your customers, What do you want? ask yourself, What do they need? Investigate emerging technologies and match them up with the needs you've anticipated.

One of the greatest changes in the sales and marketing fields is, of course, the new needs of consumers. Today they are more sophisticated, have higher expectations, and are less loyal to brand names than ever before. They want variety, high quality, low cost, and they want it now.

We are all being asked to do more with less. Over the next five years, we will all experience a value shift from material wealth to free time. You can leverage time with technology by using new tools to do two or more things at the same time. For example a cellular phone allows you to make a sales call while driving a car and a notebook computer with a modem allows you to log a sale on the office computer without having to go to the office. Perhaps the best service you can provide is to help them do two or more jobs at once, thus multiplying their most valuable commodity: time, the currency of the ninties.

Look at how interactive television will give its customers the ability to make choices from a variety of superior, inexpensive options, enabling them to use their time most effectively. With interactive TV, many consumers will save time and money by shopping in a virtual shopping mall. A virtual flower shop will allow customers to select the type of flower arrangement they want to send, or a virtual video store will allow customers to rent any video they wish, or a virtual doctor's office will bring a specialist to your home whenever you need one. Think of the implications to sales and marketing of virtual storefronts.

With the advent of desktop videoconferencing, for instance, you will have regular, face-to-face communication with customers worldwide. Gone are the days of weekly cross-continental flights: Just pick up the phone, and both see and talk to your client in an instant. And with a new technological club sandwich called electronic data interchange, several layers of breakthroughs will revolutionize the delivery system of products and services. For example, electronic data interchange (EDI) lets the cotton thread manufacturer in Taiwan know that two more spools will be needed by the denim mill in Georgia because The Gap in Washington, DC, has just sold three pairs of jeans. What's more, think of the unbeatable product demonstrations that will be given using advanced simulations. This tool gives your customers the ability to see what you are trying to describe such as a new floor plan or a new product application.

A new world is taking shape before your eyes, and you can't afford to hide out in the old familiar places. While it's important to meet new people, make connections, and keep your network growing, it's just as crucial to get out and shake the hand of the new technology that will turn tomorrow's opportunities into today's profits.