Next Stop - The 21st Century

Anne Busquet

President, American Express Relationship Services
American Express Co.
New York, New York

Many people believe that we have entered the age of the Internet. Actually, it's more accurate to say that we're living in the age of the customer. Make no mistake: Customers are in control today. They have access to more information than ever before, and they can retrieve it faster than ever before. There has never been a better time to be a customer -- or a more demanding time to be a company.

The first challenge of the 21st century will be to master the changes that come with customers being in control. Companies will have to find ways to get to market at lightning speed, to make decisions in real time, and to offer highly personalized products. Each company needs to develop an unprecedented degree of flexibility in order to offer customers what they want -- when and how they want it. Companies that manage this transition effectively will thrive; those that don't will fail.

Of course, companies don't change unless the people in them change. It's up to every one of us to figure out how prepared we are to enter the age of the customer. Am I genuinely passionate about doing what's best for customers -- as opposed to what's easiest for me? Am I willing to surrender a certain amount of control -- in order to give more control to customers?

The more the business world changes, the more obvious it becomes that business life will keep getting faster. In the 21st century, change will become the defining reality of business, and people and companies that embrace change will be the ones that survive and flourish.

Anne Busquet (anne.busquet@aexp.com) joined American Express as an assistant marketing manager in 1978. Today, she is responsible for the company's customer-information management, its global interactive strategies, and its smart-card initiatives, as well as other business ventures. Busquet, who was Born in Mulhouse, France, has also served as an operations analyst for Hilton International and for Holiday Inn.

Chuck McGrady

President
Sierra Club
San Francisco, California

Our well-being in the next century will largely depend on how we resolve two major threats to the environment: climate change and urban sprawl. To be sure, scientists haven't reached a consensus on how fast the global-warming trend is moving, or on what its full impact will be. But are we really prepared to sit by before we address climate changes that could alter the planet's mix of plants and wildlife?

It's up to the United States to take the lead role. We put the most greenhouse gases into the air. Our cars are a big part of the problem, and that's what makes the current fascination with sport-utility vehicles so disturbing. How many of us really need high-powered, four-wheel-drive vehicles to drop our kids off at school? Sure, auto companies are developing technologies that will reduce emissions. But folks are getting in their cars more often, and they are driving longer, than ever.

Why are people driving so much and so far? Because of sprawl. I live in Henderson County, North Carolina. Folks here have long been averse to land-use planning. But they see that the county's vistas are being eaten away by subdivisions that don't connect to the local towns. You've got to jump in your car just to go and pick up some milk! In the long term, that kind of car culture affects the communities that we live in and the way we interact -- or don't interact -- with one another.

Sprawl is less about regulating polluters than it is about shaping individual choices. It's time for us to rethink where and how we live -- and to begin developing compact, vibrant cities and communities. There's another problem with sprawl, one that has nothing to do with the physical environment and everything to do with the human imagination. Spending our lives in cars turns nature into something that we drive by, rather than something that we live in. At the turn of the last century, John Muir remarked that if he could just get people out into the Sierra Nevada, they would instinctively want to protect that majestic place. Only by feeling that kind of connection can people see the environment as a real place, rather than as a nice abstraction.

Chuck McGrady (chuck.mcgrady@sierraclub.org) is the 47th president of the oldest and largest grassroots environmental organization in the United States. Founded in 1892 by John Muir, the Sierra Club today has 550,000 members. As a member of the Republican party, McGrady works to build bipartisan support for environmental-protection measures. He does not drive a sport-utility vehicle.