THE WIRED INDEX
The success of Charles Schwab, a stellar stock market performer and charter WIRX member, is no accident. One of the first brokerages to embrace telephone trading in the 1980s, the Web in the 1990s, and now wireless phones and PDAs, Schwab was quick to recognize that its customers live in an increasingly multichannel world.
Companies that once reached customers via television, radio, phone, fax, and browser must consider an ever-expanding array of devices. Each new option offers further opportunities to cement customer relationships and sell products and services.
The first trick is to match information conduits with products and services – say, cell phones for customer support, and dashboard computers for fast-food sales. The second challenge is to anticipate patterns of use. According to Schwab, for instance, Palm users check stock prices more frequently than those who trade on PCs. Only companies that understand how their customers want to communicate will profit from the investment in new channels.
What's more, regardless of the means they use, when customers approach a business, they'd better leave feeling satisfied or they won't come back. That's why WIRX stalwarts like BroadVision, i2, Oracle, and Microsoft are focusing on customer relationship management – businesses will always pay for systems that increase customer profitability.
These back-end providers have a solid opportunity, but they're only enablers for the real action. The big winners will be savvy marketers like Schwab that embrace higher-value, lower-cost channels and motivate customers to use them.
– Phil Hood (phood@digital4sight.com)
INDEX PERFORMANCE (as of 3/1/01)
| Name| Since 11/30/95| Previous 12 mos. | YTD
| WIRX | +293.88 % | -29.07 % | -10.32 %
| Nasdaq Composite | +103.16 % | -54.18 % | -12.90 %
| Dow Jones Industrials | +106.82 % | +3.62 % | -2.71 %
The Wired Index tracks 40 public companies selected by editors of Wired to serve as a bellwether for the new economy. For a complete description and the latest results, see stocks.wired.com. Data courtesy Bloomberg Financial Markets.
| NEW MONEY
| Channel Surfeit
