Remember those pre-Internet days? When you would wait for a faxed quotation and not demand an immediate quote through e-mail? When you had to wait for a colour brochure to be sent to you, containing a catalogue of products with specifications, instead of simply logging on?

Those were the days – when we could get through 24 hours without some billboard, brochure or TV advertisement shoving a ubiquitous www.younameit.com in our face.

We live in a world revolutionised by computers and communications like nothing before. The Internet is at once a worldwide broadcasting capability, a mechanism for information dissemination, and a medium for collaboration and interaction between individuals, companies and their computers without regard for geographic location.

But exactly what has the Internet done for YOU and YOUR business?

Besides the obvious advertising and marketing impact (which we will go into in future columns), how has the Internet affected business? The first thing to understand is that the Internet has NOT changed the way business is done.

You still have to negotiate the best deal, you still have to check quality of products or services, you still have to trust who you are doing business with. These things will never change simply because of technology.

The Internet has changed business at a very fundamental level. It has changed the business relationship.

In pre-Internet days, business was done through distributors, resellers, traders and a host of other middlemen. Today, you can almost deal direct because of the nature of the Internet – just think of Dell.

So in order to keep the business going, organisations have had to re examine the relationship with their clients. What value proposition can they bring to their client in a wired world? And even more importantly, how can that value proposition can be delivered electronically?

Law firms have found a way to deliver counsel through the Internet, the film industry has jumped on the same bandwagon – there isn’t a single blockbuster today that does not have trailers and clips on the Internet. So the question (for businesses that want to take advantage of the Internet in full) today is:

What value does my business want to provide to my clients through the Internet and what is the corresponding benefit to me?

Many Internet channels are electronic brochures, providing information on products and services. This does not address the business relationship, and that is what we shall examine in depth in our next column.