Blockbuster Weakened

“It is very old wisdom that whoever has the information has the power. With the Internet, the customer has all the information.”

–Peter Drucker, “The Future of the Corporation III,” 2003 lecture

Blockbuster’s bankruptcy filing last week was about more than a brick-and-mortar-based business that had grown old and tired. It was about Blockbuster failing to provide its customers with the speed and quality that they have learned to value and come to expect in a world of Netflix, Vudu, Apple TV and other online rivals.

“Under e-commerce,” Peter Drucker wrote in his 2002 book Managing in the Next Society, “delivery will become the one area in which a business can truly distinguish itself. It will become the critical ‘core competence.’ Its speed, quality and responsiveness may well become the decisive competitive factor even where brands seem to be entrenched.”

In this edition of Drucker Apps, we invite you to join our conversation about how the Internet is altering the fundamental relationship between businesses and their customers. Weighing in will be Lisa Gansky, author of The Mesh: Why the Future of Business is Sharing; Peter Cohan, consultant, author and DailyFinance columnist; and others with insights into this subject.

We open things up with this question: How has the Internet affected the way your business deals with its customers, and how has it impacted your choices and behavior as a consumer?