Disintermediation

On November 14, 2008, I wrote, within the context of the tradeoff between richness and reach, about the

Tremendous advantage we have as entrepreneurs in the age of disintermediation is that we no longer have to make a trade-off between richness and reach.

Wikipedia says this about disintermediation:

In economics, disintermediation is the removal of intermediaries in a supply chain: "cutting out the middleman". Instead of going through traditional distribution channels, which had some type of intermediate (such as a distributor, wholesaler, broker, or agent), companies may now deal with every customer directly, for example via the Internet. One important factor is a drop in the cost of servicing customers directly.

Disintermediation initiated by consumers is often the result of high market transparency, in that buyers are aware of supply prices direct from the manufacturer. Buyers bypass the middlemen (wholesalers and retailers) in order to buy directly from the manufacturer and thereby pay less. Buyers can alternatively elect to purchase from wholesalers. Often, a B2C company functions as the bridge between buyer and manufacturer.

Read the whole article and read the Evans and Wurstner book I referred to in my November 14 posting.

Disintermediation has been afoot now for some time. It's caused short-term dislocation but long-term opportunity for others. I think some industries have been disintermediated when they shouldn't have been, and other industries have benefited from it. Some industries will reintermediate, and both things will be going on for some time.

What do you think about this? Do you use email marketing? I'd like to know. Also Google it. And post a comment.

Entrepreneurship 2.0 is my entrepreneurship course. It supplies the life's blood of my professional activities: teaching, writing, and real estate. For entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for entrepreneurial writing to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot/com.