THE ENTRY OF ELECTRONIC ESCAPISM

The click-and-mortar business has now given way to the click-and-click model, where everything is virtual and very little is physical

- ​​​​​​​HARISH BIJOOR

WE live in a world divided by two kinds of businesses. One is the physical avatar as we knew it in the old days, and the other is the digital and virtual businesses of today.

The physical business, for instance, is the one that grows coffee in the highlands of Coorg investing months of time, energy and effort, gets the produce processed at specialised coffee-curing works, roasts it to perfection under the keen eye of a roaster and is ground and packaged. This packaged coffee is then pushed from the gut of the growing and manufacturing area into the vast hinterland of the consumption market, through intermediaries of every kind. The product finally reaches retail shelves, and, you and I reach out and buy a pack to re-create that coffee-making experience at home. From the gut of the growing area to the gut of the consumer, this is a physical business that happens over time and consumes sheer labour.

Every business that focuses on the physical offering at hand is an intense one that uses the classical resources of land, labour and capital to produce what is an offer to cherish. This model is all we knew, and many of us called it the brick-and-mortar business. And then the times moved on. The click-andmortar businesses happened with the entry of technologies of the computer and internet kind. Early businesses of these kinds were a cusp of the virtual and the physical. The click-and-mortar business has now given way to the click-and-click model of business, where everything is virtual and very little is physical.