The Internet offers us a new way for everything and everyone, nobody is really outside. The "digital revolution" has already passed and now we are going through what is expected… the evolution in all our habits, especially those related to business, and like everything else, requires time and above all losses, because all evolution-revolution requires time, training and paradigm shifts that some are unwilling or simply unable to take on.
Now we come to Argentina. How many non-startup companies (entrepreneurs) adapt to the Internet and use it to live? Let's be aware how many companies can live off pure advertising banners, even more so when the CPM in Latin America is (currently) half of what they pay in the US and Spain.
As a network I can say that the Internet is a dream, you just have to calm down and see the advantages calmly, aim well at the center before shooting. Everything seems easy, fast, almost free… but cheap is usually the most expensive option.
Now, the question is: The resistance that companies put up to venture into the Internet, and I am talking about selling, buying… that part of our company's income depends directly on the Internet, is it due to a paradigm problem, an education problem and training or a business economic reality ?.
My main job at 314 is "digital media." Medium-sized regional companies (I speak of between 10 to 50 employees in the northwestern area of Argentina) only request a site to be able to have e-mail and a more important personality when it comes to working with traditional channels, a few go with this and a couple of new ideas of what they can do online. They get excited, they place points for the attention of digital communications with the client, we work with tools to attract and retain prospects, among others, but when our contract ends, when they only have to continue with the work of "interacting with the client", the mails begin to pile up, nobody updates the page. and the person in charge of running the site is now in after-sales,he answers the phone and is in charge of ensuring that classifieds and advertisements appear in the newspaper with the highest circulation in the area.
It is a reality… the cause (in my opinion, without doing a detailed study) is simple, if something does not give you money, competitive advantages, power to the brand, etc… I quickly put my effort into something else.
Is it really not possible to sell online today?
Yes, you can, and I can tell you about several cases: some guys who set up a business, today thanks to an online catalog that proposes several ways to request orders and a contact center (they started with a secretary, today three people attend to orders that are only generated by the network) they came to sell throughout the country, I can continue with an artisan who with a little ingenuity ended up in Spain in a presentation of his work, among several. But my question is, why do medium-sized companies (between 10 and 50 people) put up so much resistance and it costs them so much? I believe that the entrepreneur does not have much to lose, and one more income for him is glory. A incorporated company that has to pay 50 employees thinks twice about changing the way it does things. It's okay? That's wrong? We should ask them.
Some ideas that come to mind are:
Hypercompetitiveness and business communication.
Are companies really prepared to be in a medium where communication is the center of sales and where competition is not only just around the corner but can be any person, entrepreneurship or mega-company that proposes to customers the same, exactly the same product?
Hyperinformation.
With so many places, sites, search engines, the Internet customer is too informed and knows the tricks, he knows what he wants. A company is prepared both psychologically and in resources to serve this user so familiar with Internet technologies (example: "Please give me your skype to call you", and I can think of requests much more difficult to satisfy than that).
The dish is tempting, but the costs are complicated. Today a company does not risk venturing into digital media because it does not know them, and it knows that a gaffe can be fatal.
It is my opinion.
