Market downturn and the Internet

Image courtesy

The fault dear Brutus,
is not in our stars, But in ourselves

W. Shakespeare

While experimenting worldwide markets downturn, we can wonder whether the net could be able to help in such a difficult moment.

What’s more, the net itself will be hit by the downturn wave and we will probably see a consolidation in the online business competitive arena. Companies with the weaker business plans will suffer more, but also solid consolidated companies are not immune by the crisis. For instance, just few days ago we learnt that an historical brand like  ebay is firing  10% of its workforce, as well as a small start-up like seesmic let go a third of its workers. Generally speaking there is a broad consensus between business analysts that many startups 2.0 still in the pre-revenues phase will disapper. Some estimate 10-15% of the market, some others, more apocaliptycal, estimate  50-80% of the pre-revenues players

What can we do, as  netizens, to help our economies? Is there something that we can do?

Internet Call to action

In crisis times, companies generally become more introverse: sales cycle times are longer, costs are scrutined for cutting, there is short of projetcs for the future and plenty of surviving mode mindset, thus having the problems deriving from an hostile competitive environment get worsened . So is there anything the net can do to help in those circumstances?

Online advertising growth. The first contribution the net can give is… keeping up with the good work she’s already doing. By all means, online advertising is still growing double digit all over the world reaching the 13,8% of global adv spending in 2013 (8,6% in 2007). That’s by far a great impact.

Education. Companies are engaged in a continous learning process about the opportunities coming from the net. The net herself can be the best place to to clarify, explain, suggest those opportunities.

Efficiency, innovation, sales. The typical companies’ reaction to financial crisis is a search for efficiency via cost cutting. But best companaies know that, right when your industry or the whole economy are experiencing difficulties, there is plenty of opportunities  to build a future competitive aqdvantage.  So here is a presentation I made few months ago -creating value with social media – where I read social media through the lens of the value chain concept  in order to understand how to improve value creation using social media for cost cutting, increasing sales, branding.

So what about your company? Has it already been hit by the crisis? How is the reaction like? Use comments to tell about your experience and point of view.