Fanciful Idea for the Pundits…

The late nineties saw a spurt of business mod-els based on pure-play IT. To
the dismay of many tech-pundits, the new economy was too short-lived. At the end
of the day, the old economy continued its reign.

Pranab Chakraborty:  Head (new technology group), CGI-India

But that e-revolution did leave firm imprints on the old economy. However a
natural question is what is the next big thing in the domain of e-enablement?
And when will the next big eWave hit the shore? So far, the Internet has allowed
the outside stakeholders alone to affect the peripheral functions of the
organizations. Their successful e-transformation has dramatically improved the
organizational efficiency. But, if you examine this in the context of a generic
manufacturing shop, the impact of e-interaction is virtually zero in its core
operations — i.e. in areas like Product Design and actual Manufacturing. Can
the outsiders (e.g. consumers) directly impact them via the Internet? Perhaps.
Therein lies a big potential. Once we e-enable those central functions and
ensure increased customer interaction, it can cause a fundamental shift in the
business model. A perfect scenario can be where the customer directly controls
and manages the production process. Then the business can truly be run ‘for
the customer, and by the customer’.

Looks preposterous! Think again. Examine the coffee-vending machine in your
office or the coin-operated Laundromat in advanced countries. Can we set up
similar digital production facilities accessible via Internet? Surely, it is
technically viable. But will it make commercial sense? If so, for what products
or circumstances?

Let me digress to a small personal experience. Recently a door-to-door
salesman sold my wife a couple of ‘customized’ fairy-tale books. He jotted
down the name of my daughter and some of her best friends. After a month came
the storybooks of Alice et al — but with a twist. My daughter and her friends
have replaced Alice and the funny characters. So the story has become much more
endearing to my daughter - she is actually in the fairy-tale!

Digital factory

This eManufacturing model perfectly suits all industries where the products
itself are virtually digital — be it in the realms of books, newspapers,
movies or music. You can cut a music CD with Ravishankar, Norah Jones and Bee
Gees. Frankly the recording industry can also benefit — if people are given
legitimate choices to buy what they really want, they may stop resorting to
Napster-like piracy. It is pretty clear that endless possibilities exist in the
’bit’-oriented manufacturing world. What about the atom-based products? Can
eManufacturing make some impact there also? I think it can. Let us imagine a
T-shirt factory. The machines, and the basic raw materials are all set-up by the
manufacturer; you supply your own design patterns through the Internet and
invoke the production process. The outcome will be that you own a one-of-a-kind
T-shirt.

Final thought

The ubiquitous Net has continued to peel off the organizational structure.
Surely, it will continue to march inside organizations, as businesses further
shed auxiliary functions. It can result in much nimbler flexible Net-enabled
manufacturing so that customers can directly manipulate the product design and
production process to manufacture the desired goods and services. And what
should we call such a business model? Let us give this futuristic eManfucturing
model a flavor of Einstein. Let us put our faith in eM2C…

Pranab Chakraborty