Introduction

If I had to think of one word to describe the benefits of technology to businesses, I would say “Access.” Access has many implications for businesses. Among other things access means:

    -         access to cheaper and more powerful technology than ever before
    -         access to customers, prospects and suppliers
    -         access to information that can be the key to competitive advantage; and
    -         access to global markets

In just the last ten years, technology has become more and more accessible to all businesses and business people, and gone a long way to leveling the playing field among competitors. With almost equal access to technology, the name of the game becomes how cleverly and impactfully you can use technology, rather how to develop of pay for it.

It matters less now than ever before if your business is large or small, local or global, or, appropriately for today’s conference, run by a man or a woman.

I am reminded of a cartoon that appeared in the US magazine The New Yorker in which there is a humorous picture of a dog seated at a PC, surfing the web. The caption reads “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.” It’s a fun cartoon, but also underlines a serious point: technology has now effectively changed the importance of many of the social and cultural nuances of business, and provided new ways for people to meet and relate.

With my responsibility for MSN internationally, I will focus my remarks today on business and the Internet.

MSN is the world’s most popular web destination with 350 million unique users. MSN Hotmail is the world’s leading free web based email service with 170 million accounts world wide, and the most popular instant messaging platform is MSN Messenger, which have more than 120 million active unique users worldwide. MSN has local presence in 38 markets and in 20 different languages. Our mobile business, especially here is Asia has grown substantially in the past few year with MSN Mobile available in 25 countries via more than 60 mobile carriers.

According to a recent Roper Survey “Women of the World,” one in three women either use the Internet (31%) or has home access to the Internet (33%), and 50% of women who worked used a PC in the last 30 days. 61% of women using the Internet use it for e-mail, and only 28% use the Internet to get information about their work or business. These statistics show impressive usage of the Internet by women, but perhaps more importantly, demonstrate that there is tremendous scope for growth from today’s baseline.

Here in Asia, according to another source, 22% of Internet users are women (23% in India, but more than 38% in China). In China alone there are more than eight million women online.

As part of panel discussion, needless to say I cannot cover the uses of the Internet to grow businesses in much detail today, but I did want to highlight a couple of practical examples, and I’ll be happy to take questions at the end as well.

Internet tools to grow your business

First, I’d like to talk about how some simple Internet tools can give businesspeople access to information, potential customers and opportunities for collaboration that were only dreamed of at the biggest, most sophisticated companies just a decade ago. Often the first step to making a business bigger is to look and behave larger and more professional.

Most of the time proven guidelines for building businesses, but technology gives them a new edge, freshness and effectiveness.

For example, networking is a key part of any business growth strategy. Getting together with your contacts from previous jobs, the schools you attended, and joining professional organizations are all ways to broaden your exposure to the people who can influence your business and refer new business to you.

Face to face meetings are still an important part of networking. Join technology-related professional organizations such as the Asia Digital Marketing Association, of which MSN is a founding board member. Not only will you learn a lot and stay in touch with latest trends, but also by leading or participating in the various committees, you can build lasting relationships and demonstrate your company’s capabilities in a low pressure, collegial non-sales situation. And, the Asia Digital Marketing Association’s website www.asiadma.com is filled with specific real life case studies of how businesses have harnesses the power of the internet for you to learn from, as well as a useful regionwide collection of senior industry contacts for you to reach out to.

Other good choices include chambers of commerce, high profile charities with “movers and shakers” on their boards, and academic and government activities. Whatever the organization, the power of networking through professional organizations and your own personal contacts is greatly enhanced and made more efficient by online communications tools such as MSN Messenger. Within your company, you can get instantly connected with employees, suppliers, and customers – worldwide and 24/7. MSN Messenger started with teens and chat, and has now grown into a powerful enterprise tool for communications and networking. After a few weeks of online networking, the results will already be visible: you can see on your Buddy List when colleagues, friends, networking organizations, former colleagues and just about anyone in your networking circles are online for instant access.

Instant access is important when it comes to delivering customer support; I’m all of us understood the value of supporting our very valuable customers – a must to be successful in today’s market. Another type of Messaging is Chat, and it’s through chat support we at MSN handle 1/3 of our support incidents per month – that’s about 700k chats per month! This support is currently delivered via two technologies, 1) vendor proprietary software (Webhelp) and 2) licensed software. Another way technology is delivering 24/7 solutions to help customers.

Search engine technology is one of the most powerful levelers of the playing field for businesses today. As a business development tool, it means that even the smallest and most remotely located business has virtually the same access to information that the largest company has. A simple MSN Search for ideas on best practice on, say, US import regulations instantly yields more then 164,000 responses – which can easily be further sorted to give you access to exactly what you need to know. Certainly you will need to further evaluate the data and perhaps work with your legal advisor before you act, but you can get the first 80% of the work done in a fraction of the time previously required.

And, MSN and other search technologies make your business “findable” to potential customers around the world. Just by having an online presence through your website or on-line postings to other websites and listing in industry directories, your business will gain a reach and exposure worldwide without any further investment on your part. If you want to enhance the power of search, you can also advertise against the most relevant keywords for your business, such as “import/export,” or “garden supplies” or whatever your business entails.

I’d also like to spend a minute on the role of the Internet as a publicity vehicle. The old fashioned method was publicity in the newspaper. Today, every business has access to sophisticated e-mail electronic distribution tools, and using permission-based lists of customers and prospects, you can reach out to hundreds and even thousands of contacts simultaneously and virtually free. Today, everyone is a publisher as well as a consumer of media, and you can write your own industry viewpoints and “top ten tips” documents that can get you targeted exposure with a wide web audience.

Internet advertising

Second, I’d like to touch on the power of digital marketing and advertising on the web. Again, I’ll use some examples from MSN, and included in our handout, it’s important to note that the brands advertising online range from airlines,credit cards, cars, beauty products, banks to canned goods like Green Giant and Milk!

Case study # 1 The UK dairy Council. “Cream of the crop” – the challenge was to increase the awareness for the health benefits of milk, and the target was parents, mothers and especially young women. We did a number of creative treatments for this campaign, one being a banner that ran across the home page with a teaser “Which drink is 98% fat-free?” We also placed banners on female focused channels, i.e. the horoscopes. Results in a post campaign research should a 9% lift in awareness from online advertising, 35% recalled that “milk gives you strong teeth” message that was on the MSN homepage. Results demonstrated that demographic targeting was a great success – 82% of the respondents on the on the horoscope channel were female.

. Case study # 2 Another female target - L’Oreal has been active with online advertising in Europe, Taiwan and Australia to name a few. In Australia they used only online to launch their new Cleaning Wipes, with excellent results in terms of sales but also a 95% confidence level in the product.

Conclusion

I hope these examples of Search, Instant Messaging, Chat and marketing online have brought to light some specific, highly accessible ways to use technology to grow your businesses. With 38% of working women now accessing the Internet, it’s clear that everyone in this room, and women around the world, have only just begun to tap the business power of the Internet. I look forward to our further discussion and to answering any questions.

Any Questions & Comments, contact GlobeWomen at summit@globewomen.com. Or, write to us:

Globewomen, Inc./ 666 11th St. NW, Ste. 700/ Washington, DC 20001/ USA

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