Is Competition From The Internet Getting You Down?- Bitterroot Valley Chamber of Commerce and the University of Montana join forces to assist local businesses

The Business Networking Group (BNG) is a new Bitterroot Valley Chamber of Commerce group. The group purpose is to foster an environment where interaction with peers, friends and mentors can have a positive effect on the success of our businesses.

In January of this year the Business Networking Group was asked to address the problems local businesses were facing from competition from Internet businesses like Ebay.

The Group chose to address the problem by providing an opportunity to use resources from local volunteers and The University of Montana to help four businesses identify specific areas in their business plans where improvement to competing with Internet businesses could occur.

All Valley Outdoors owned by Bob Wolfe, Cybernet1 owned by Richard Pederson, and Fishaus, owned by Bill Bean volunteered and were selected to participate.

These entrepreneurial owners are eager to explore innovative ideas for improvement with the best and brightest students at The University of Montana.

Step 1 of the process will involve local volunteers assisting the business owners and their staff in completing a Strength, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) Assessment. Volunteer teams of five will begin in mid June. Those that have volunteered their time for this process are: Julie Foster of Montana Jobs Network, Tawnya Mortenson of Sterling Savings Bank, Diane Wolfe of the Bitterroot Valley Chamber of Commerce, Robert Diefenbach of First Interstate Bank, Patti Furniss Manager of the Bitterroot Job Service, Jeanne McKinney of Ragged Mountain Antler Artist, Shannon Henderson of Bitterroot Outfitters, Marlin Neaves of Authentic Computer Tutoring, and Steve Grover of the Small Business Development Center.

Step 2 of the process will be submitting the information from the SWOT process to The University of Montana Marketing Professor, Dr. Jakki Mohr. Dr. Mohr’s Technology Marketing class will select several businesses that they will assist with marketing needs.

This is a student-driven project; however Dr. Mohr advises the students and work closely with them. Dr. Mohr’s research has been published in the Journal of Marketing, the Strategic Management Journal, the Journal of Public Policy and Marketing, the Journal of Retailing, the Journal of High Technology Management Research, Marketing Management, and Computer Reseller News. Her book, Marketing of High-Technology Products and Innovations, was published in January 2001.

Step 3 of the process is putting the proposed plan into action. This is often a step that fails to materialize. Working with The University of Montana Professor of Management and Director of Internship, Dr. Maureen Fleming, University interns will help the businesses implement their plans in a timely and affordable manner utilizing. See Center for Work Based Learning http://www.umt.edu/internships/

Dr. Fleming teaches courses in management and directs the School of Business Internship Program ( which had about 260 interns last year). She is a trustee on the Montana Board of Investments which manages $8billion of state funds and the state retirement systems. She is currently the Chair of the Research Committee of the Society of Human Resource Management and is treasurer of the Society’s Foundation board. This organization has 175,000 members. She serves on several Boards of Directors of Montana companies and has received numerous awards for her teaching.

This project was established not only to assist the selected businesses but to provide learning opportunities for all businesses facing difficult competition from Internet companies.

Through the Chamber, the media and the Business Networking Group’s web based "white board" located at http://www.bitterroot.net/bng progress reports and information on how to begin beating the competition will be posted.

The Business Networking Group meets at 4pm at The Exchange the first Tuesday of the month. You don’t have to be a Chamber member to attend. Members of the Bitterroot Valley business community that do attend are listed on our "white board". Contact and chairperson for the Business Networking Group is Julie Foster, 777-7185 or [email protected]