Putting Your Sister-In-Law Out Of Business

The possibility of having a graphic designer in Indonesia and your sister-in-law, who may live down the street from you, in competition for your business is real and its implications are profound. This new reality, enabled by the internet, sets in motion a competitive whirlwind that could easily be seen by any local designer as incredibly unfair, and stirs anger among the traditionalists as to a means to obtain image counsel. While there is certainly merit in the argument, low cost and speed are attractive lures for the consumer. No place for IBM to go for council, but the new realtor opening doors down the street doesn’t need high-end expertise.

While it might be difficult to see the direct impact of this heightened competitive environment (enabled by the internet) on every business, it does have one over-arching implication: if you can’t do it “my way” than I can find someone else who will.

Customization has become so heightened that if your business is not capable, you create an opening through which a competitor can come and eat your lunch – not to mention dinner and breakfast.  While you might argue whether or not the new way using the internet is the preferred way to operate, in the end the buyer gets to make that decision.

This is the age of Mass Customization, pure and simple. Enabled by the flow of information from around the world at 186,000 miles per second, literally the speed of light, no place in the world is more than the blink of an eye away.