Christopher Barnatt

Virtual communities and financial services ‐ on‐line business potentials and strategic choice

As the user‐base of the Internet expands, on‐line “virtual communities” may have the potential to become the key customer‐infomediaries, social forums, and trading arenas, of the early twenty‐first century. In parallel, new delivery channels and new means of fostering long‐term customer relationships may prove critical for success in the financial services industry. As these two developments intertwine, many organizations in the sector may therefore need to consider desktop icons as an emerging customer interface. Reviews the economic argument for virtual communities as the first viable Internet value‐creation model to combine content and communication. Drawing from practical experience with pioneering virtual community developments, and a consideration of direct and indirect financial service delivery channels, the conclusion is reached that many companies in the sector now face an important, strategic choice in the development of their on‐line presence. For most, this will be between deciding to act rapidly to build their own virtual community, or instead opting for a more effective third party, virtual community “inhabitation strategy”.

Grey Advantage: New strategies for the old

Abstract With nearly one fifth of the population of the industrialized world soon to be beyond a traditional retirement age, businesses need to re-appraise their attitudes towards both older workers and older customers. Whilst some public and private sector organizations may have signalled such intentions, the gap between the rhetoric and reality of ‘third age’ employment and grey market development is still substantial. Analysing the ‘Age-Quake’, this article reviews current ageing population trends and associated business agendas. Using case study analysis, it then challenges three perceived ‘grey discontinuities’, as well as the traditional perception of simplistic step-change declines in physical and mental abilities and economic activity at the traditional retirement age. Deriving from this, the article challenges the older received wisdom by offering the individual assessment of ‘third-agers’ in terms of abilities as employees and tastes as customers as two generic strategies to assist managers in the strategic alignment of their organizations in pursuit of “grey advantage”.

flexible specialization and the reconfiguration of television production in the UK

This paper sets out to examine the strategic, technological and organizational implications of Piore and Sabels thesis of ‘industrial divides’— of critical moments in history when the existing logic of organizational and technological development comes to be challenged. This thesis, while very influential in the social sciences, has not received the attention it merits in the discourse o f strategic management. Herein we extend the Piore and Sabel thesis to examine changes currently under way in the UK television (TV) industry. These changes, based on flexibility and the development of network forms of organization in TV production, are broadly supportive of Piore and Sabels argument. However, when we look at the downstream elements ofthe TV value chain, we see dzffermt forms of reconfiguration at firm and sector levels driven in part by an emerging range of new distribution technologies.

Grey Power: Developing Older Customer Strategies

This chapter explores the increasing importance of “grey power” in the labor market and the marketplace. To fully understand grey market potential, companies need to develop an understanding of individual older customers and their broader social contexts in terms of both their varying immediate household compositions, and their intergenerational relationships. In this chapter we first challenge stereotypes and then introduce a model of older-person segmentation. The frame of analysis is then extended beyond the individual older customer in order to assess the range of “future households” in which the old will increasingly play a key role when purchasing decisions are being made. We provide a wealth/health segmentation for firms seeking to develop older customer strategies, and supplement this with a categorization of future households and the issues raised by intergenerational dynamics. This is then used to challenge false assumptions about older household compositions in the twenty-first century. In turn, this provides a segmentation of the old as workers and as customers in a variety of social contexts, which we hope offers some useful tools for companies seeking to capitalize on grey power now and into the future.

Grey Power: Older Workers as Older Customers

This chapter explores the increasing importance of “grey power” in the labour market and the marketplace. To fully understand grey market potential, companies need to develop an understanding of individual older customers and their broader social contexts in terms of both their varying immediate household compositions, and their intergenerational relationships. In this chapter we first challenge stereotypes and then introduce a model of older-person segmentation. The frame of analysis is then extended beyond the individual older customer in order to assess the range of “future households” in which the old will increasingly play a key role when purchasing decisions are being made. We provide a wealth/health segmentation for firms seeking to develop older customer strategies, and supplement this with a categorization of future households and the issues raised by intergenerational dynamics. This is then used to challenge false assumptions about older household compositions in the twenty-first century. In turn, this provides a segmentation of the old as workers and as customers in a variety of social contexts, which we hope offers some useful tools for companies seeking to capitalize on grey power now and into the future.

Remember Icarus! Seven risks that threaten BusinessSchools

Business schools, according to certain measures, have been a major success story in the recent past of the university, enjoying significant demand growth. We suggest that their future may be more problematic. We offer different possible scenarios for business schools and identify seven key risks that they face. We argue that the most significant challenge business schools must negotiate is to redefine and clarify their mission and redesign themselves to meet these risks. We conclude that the business schools best able to survive and prosper in the future are likely to be very different from those that currently exist.

Apple Pie Thinking for the Wired Age

A teenager in an arcade battles pterodactyls in a multi-user virtual reality. Two pensioners on different continents exchange e-mails and images of their grandchildre n. A heavy-metal enthusiast in the United Kingdom orders a compact disc over the Net from a retailer in the United States. And a class of 11-year-olds research an article from a dozen worldwide web sites and publish the result on their school’s intrane t. But stop! Wait! Help! Somebody is enjoying themselves! People are communicating who may never have met! Companies are selling directly to consumers at low prices! And young people are learning to interact with knowledge and to think for themselves rather than to passively accept linear, single media programming! Call the police, the military, the evange lists, and the Luddite defenders of the Good Old Ways! Let’s forego the evil of the screen and take up residence in a dark, quiet cave . . . . The preceding paragraph is undoubtedly somewhat exaggerated. Nevertheless, the view that we all ought to fear and resist many aspects of the “Wired Age” remains a prevalent one across a sizeable proportion of Western society. Indeed, according to some commentators, a great many of the computing and communications technologies of the late twentieth century are not only inherently “bad,” but risk robbing us of the very essence of Human Relations, Vol. 52, No. 4, 1999