How are businesses gearing up for the new consumer power that is emerging from the electronic revolution? I did some research for Marketing Forum 2000 to find out, and discovered real dilemmas for marketing and businesses.

The research, which was conducted among both marketers and consumers, found that the rules of marketing haven't changed fundamentally, but that many of the processes marketers use are now too bureaucratic and ponderous.

Some companies are simply hiving off their electronic division to keep the "e-types" from being too disruptive a force in the existing culture. This is, in effect, a kind of corporate denial. A better solution would be to embrace the need for change and become quicker to respond and less bureaucratic. Size is important in the e-world, but speed and agility are vital, too. The winners will be the companies that succeed in combining both.

There are also implications for ways of working. In the words of one senior marketer, "This is the death of precedent." Everyone in marketing will have to find quicker, more original ways of working, with more emphasis on creativity. This should, surely, be the perfect climate for agencies.

While the marketing community is undergoing a revolution, agencies - which have traditionally seen themselves as the natural business partners of marketing clients - are turning into dinosaurs. They have not risen to the challenge of adapting to meet the rapidly changing needs of their customers. The web agencies fared even worse and were seen by one respondent as "the dot.coms of the agency world: entrepreneurial, ambitious, but lacking substance".

However, the problem is not only one for agencies. As far as consumers are concerned, few companies are getting their electronic offering right. There is too much emphasis on design and too little on functionality in websites.

One of the consumer respondents summed it up: "Your website is your shop - whether or not you are planning to sell from it. Most people who visit are looking for information and help, and they need to be given it. Then they may stay to browse and even buy. If they don't like the feel of your place, they have the biggest shopping mall in the world on their desktop."

However, this pales into insignificance against the biggest single conclusion from this research. We are witnessing the start of a seismic shift in the balance of power in marketing. We are feeling only the first distant rumbles, but as more people become e-enabled, the closer we will get to the epicentre of a major earthquake that has the potential to shake the very foundations on which marketing has been built. The marketing industry may soon look back with nostalgia at the good "old" world which was ruled by brands and built on inspiring confidence and reflecting consumer aspirations.

Since the arrival of the e-world there has been much talk of building deeper relationships based on the previously undreamed of quality and quantity of data, providing a new depth of knowledge and the ability to anticipate consumer needs. Attractive as this model may seem to today's marketers, based on the consumer research, I believe it unlikely that this will be the future of marketing.

While it is not news that the new, emergent e-consumer is becoming empowered, marketing has not yet fully understood the implications of meeting the needs of consumers who feel omnipotence rather than awe. In fact, this sense of omnipotence is not usually a response to marketing. It often comes on the back of a bigger need, such as the desire to become knowledgeable about a medical condition affecting a member of your family. It takes persistence and a degree of acquired skill to become really competent on the web. But this type of stimulus leads consumers to push through the pain barrier, and once they have done so there is no turning back.

There is a glint in the eye and an almost belligerent attitude among consumers who have "cracked" the web. Marketers and brands really need to understand this phenomenon. Never before have consumers understood that they have the power over a medium and by extension over brands. What's fundamentally exciting is that consumers are controlling it, they are defining how it grows. They don't control the way the other media work, but they are controlling this and it's immensely exciting.

People power is on the increase. Governments can't afford to ignore it and neither can brands, and this means that marketing needs to change beyond recognition.

• Lindsey Roberts is founding partner of the FRESH ideas consultancy.