Business In The 21St Century Essay Research
Business In The twenty-first Century Essay, Research Paper
1. Introduction
So where do you desire to travel tomorrow? This is the inquiry concern people are inquiring each other these yearss. Well, they are right, because non a whole batch of clip left before the terminal of the millenary and the anxiousness environing this large event is impacting everyone including the concern people of today.
While I was making my research on this subject, on the inquiry of where we want to be tomorrow in the new millenary, I have come across with many books, many web sites, many articles dedicated to this inquiry. With the manner engineering has changed our lives drastically in the last 50 old ages, we are dying and may be even a small disquieted about what is traveling to go on in the hereafter to our concerns every bit good as our lives. It was non long ago that books on the hereafter of concern warned of world-wide recessions. Now the intelligence is the wealth of chance to be found as emerging states embrace capitalist economy and as engineering brings the universe closer.
Bill Gates, in his new book: Business @ Speed of Thought, which I will frequently be mentioning to throughout this paper, suggests that, Business is traveling to alter more in the following 10 old ages than it has in the last 50. ( Bill Gates, p.13 ) This is rather a strong but however a true statement, therefore he likely named his new book ; Business at the Speed of Thought. However, because it is the hereafter we are seeking to analyse, we have no informations and all the talk and statement is conjectural. But for the clip being, we have to accept the fact that engineering is bettering in every facet and in every field on a day-to-day footing at an unbelievable velocity ; at the velocity of idea.
Since the subject of my paper is about concern in the twenty-first century and how to make the ideal organisation of the twenty-first century, I will explicate what I mean by that. Imagine the organisation of the hereafter: image the Firm, a big American endeavor in the twelvemonth 2050 Sounds like a scene from a futuristic film, doesn T it? Well, it is 1999 and it is merely 51 old ages in front of us, the twelvemonth 2050. Every forenoon full households go to the Firm & # 8211 ; the kids to the school ; the parents, to work, and at tiffin they all get together at one of the many cafeterias of the Firm. Probably the Chief executive officer of the Firm is a adult female and there is no individual ruling bulk group in the Firm unlike the domination of the white male in today s concern universe, these are people from all over the universe taking a portion in the success of the Firm. Too fanciful? We will see about that
This scenario is non a Utopian dream ; it is really rather a realistic anticipation based upon the state of affairs today. So, in this paper, I will seek to analyze the different facets and deductions of tendencies that are determining the manner organisations may germinate in the long-run hereafter. During this evolving, many facets will hold to be taken into consideration such as technological, economic, societal, and planetary. The alteration will non merely occur in North America, but all around the universe as it has already gained velocity. The societies around the Earth will confront with new versions of old jobs, such as population growing, environmental pollution, societal hurt and so forth. Besides, with the economic systems around the universe already holding started to widely accept the capitalist motion, in the really close hereafter, there will non be one individual state that is run on a different economic system than Capitalism. And of class, this will do jobs such as the spread between rich and hapless acquiring larger and larger. So, this is merely an overall image of what things may be like in the hereafter, and we have to cognize this in order to analyze how the concern construction will alter in the twenty-first Century. However, in this paper I will concentrate on some organisational and technological particulars of this alteration in the concern sphere. While making this, I will utilize Bill Gates new book along with other beginnings as mention points.
2. Why is it of import to understand the alteration in concern in the twenty-first Century?
If the 1980s were about quality and the 1990s were about reengineering, so the 2000s will be about speed. ( Bill Gates, p.13 ) suggests Bill Gates. Organizations must alter in order to be effectual in the hereafter. This clip though, compared to the alteration in the nature of concern in the 2nd half of the twentieth Century, the alteration will be really rapid and in greater volumes. How information entree will change the life styles of consumers and their outlooks of concern are traveling to be the issues of twenty-first Century life. The quality betterments and concern procedure betterments will happen far faster. Velocity along with viscousness as we have discussed in chapter 5 of the book Working Knowledge is a really of import brace that will play a big function in tomorrow s company. Naturally, when the addition in speed of concern is great plenty, the really nature of concern alterations. ( Bill Gates, p.13 ) However, in order to vie in the concern sphere, the profusion ( viscousness ) of the information that is being transferred besides has to be high in the twenty-first Century Company, because what enhances speed may thin the viscousness.
It is a true fact that, the Internet is the fastest growth, explosive market in the universe. Bill Gates has stated, & # 8220 ; There will be two types of concerns by the twelvemonth 2000
those that are on the Internet, and those that are out of business. & # 8221 ; If you don Ts know anything on what e-commerce is all about today, and all different sorts of goods and services you can purchase over the cyberspace, from an eighteenth Century oak tabular array to a used Toyota truck, so you may be surprised with this statement of Bill Gates. But, it is true ; classical manner of making concern is altering and in order to maintain up with this alteration, traveling online seems to be the lone solution. With the aid of the Net, progressively in the hereafter, concerns will hold the ability to be more antiphonal, and clients ( both concern clients and consumers ) will anticipate them to be more antiphonal. Those who are technologically competitory and antiphonal will thrive, and those who aren & # 8217 ; t will lose out.
More and more, we & # 8217 ; ll be expected to utilize the & # 8220 ; information expressway & # 8221 ; for concern intents. Whether by phone, videophone, voice mail, e-mail, Internet teleconferencing, or orbiter uplink, concern people will ne’er be out of touch with each other, their clients and the full universe.
In 1998, 1000s of concerns failed due to emerging competition on the Internet. One thing we learned from this new competition is that, if you want to stay in concern or get down a successful new concern, you must be on the Information Super Highway. In 1994, less than 1000 concerns marketed their merchandises on the Internet today, there are 1000000s, and it is estimated that a new web site is uploaded to the Internet every five seconds! In add-on, the Internet has grown from 2 million users in 1993 to over 75 million today. Experts project that there will be more than 500 million
users by the beginning of the new Millennium.
As we can already see today, telecasting and the Internet are unifying and before
long, I am certain that every American will hold easy entree to the Internet through their Television sets. This historic amalgamation of engineering is conveying a revolution in Communications, News, Entertainment, Education, and Business. And, this new engineering revolution allows concerns on the Internet to make consumers in ways ne’er before possible.
These rapid alterations taking topographic point in the universe of concern today are holding their
impact on virtually every industry and organisation. It is of import that every concern proprietor and director stay abreast of these alterations and go on to research them, larn
about them and measure them. Never has at that place been a greater demand for uninterrupted research and acquisition on the portion of concern proprietors, directors and employees. In today & # 8217 ; s universe, Old Canis familiariss must larn new fast ones to last, and immature whelps must develop an affinity for womb-to-tomb acquisition and version ( and a small cognition of Japanese wouldn & # 8217 ; t injury ) . Merely so concerns can react to turning demands of their clients in this planetary communicating age.
U.S. Commerce Secretary William Daley stated the importance of this reform in concern in a really profound and accurate manner ; Technology is reshaping this economic system and transforming concerns and consumers. This is about more than e-commerce, or electronic mail, or e-trades, or e-files. It is about the vitamin E in economic chance. This is a revolution, a dream coming true. Internet is assisting to make Adam Smith s ideal market place, in which purchasers and Sellerss can easy happen one another without taking much clip or disbursement money.
As the words concern and economic system are being redefined as a consequence of these alterations, besides the organisational substructure is taking a new form excessively. With the new millenary: direction, selling, human resources, research and development sections of corporations will be taking on new duties. I will turn to these jobs and how the companies will hold to reinvent the manner they work utilizing digital tools, in the undermentioned subdivisions. However, I would wish to indicate out the fact that if this job is non addressed and if concerns do non take the necessary safeguards and stairss to follow these new ways of making concern, it is clear that they will non be able to last in the twenty-first Century.
3. The New Rules of the Game
About all of the books we have read and studied this semester in category were about alteration and reform ; the alteration from being the caput American bison to take goose, the alteration in shared vision, squad acquisition, alteration in the manner we lead and learn, the alteration in the manner cognition is transferred and so on. Many of these Hagiographas dealt with the jobs of germinating markets, and fixing concern people for the hereafter. It is true that, In the twenty-first century, taking attention of concern agencies, taking attention of your rational capital, and the part of corporate assets defined as rational capital has been increasing more than of all time. Thus, pull offing the rational capital will be one of the nucleus values of tomorrow s concern outlook.
A. Anticipation, Innovation and Excellence
In the book Paradigms: The Business of Detecting the Future, Joel Arthur Baker nowadayss three cardinal principals that should be taken earnestly for any organisation, that wants to take part in the 21st century. These three key rules are: Anticipation, Innovation and Excellence, and without even reading his account on each of these rules, I came to recognize that many of the readings we have done in category were slightly parallel to these rules. We discussed how Johnsonville Sausages set a great illustration of excellence every bit good as invention in the work topographic point with the part of everyone involved from the line workers to exceed directors. In the book Fifth Discipline, we learned extensively about the learning organisation and how uninterrupted acquisition is important for a company. Besides once more, in Flight of the Buffalo, we learned about the importance of expectancy and foresight, as when the writer talked about how leaders should proact, non respond.
Of these three rules nevertheless, I agree with Joel Baker on the fact that excellence is at the base of the list. The chief ground for this is because twenty-first Century is traveling to be the century of excellence, where mistakes will non be tolerated in the concern sphere, because it will be the necessary monetary value of entry into any market.
So, in the 21st century market topographic point, if an organisation does non hold all the demands of excellence statistic procedure control, uninterrupted betterment, benchmarking, the changeless chase of excellence, the capableness of cognizing how to make the right thing the first clip, so the organisation will non even be able to come in the market. So, it is true to state that Innovation and Anticipation are traveling to be the determiners that will give organisations the competitory border.
In the 21st century, expectancy which provides the information for the company to be in the right topographic point at the right clip, combined with first-class advanced merchandises and services will do it possible for any organisation to last every bit good as win.
B. Six trends that form the organisations of the hereafter
Furthermore, in the book The Twenty-first Century Organization, the writer Guy Benveniste presents the six tendencies that will determine organisations of the hereafter. These six tendencies are:
+ The international competition for thoughts progressively obliges houses and authoritiess to go internationally competitory.
+ The relentless demand for entree to instruction to better oneself can permeate the work force with professional thoughts.
+ The feminisation of the civilization of organisations enhances organisations ability to get by with rapid alteration.
+ New engineerings facilitate decentalisation.
+ The effects of rapid alteration can progressively ensue in social redresss.
+ The successful organisation of the hereafter is the 1 that can cut down the queuing clip needed to transform thoughts into action.
These six tendencies form the footing of the image of the hereafter presented in Benveniste s book. It is true that there is a world-wide competition for new thoughts and that American direction patterns are already intermixing with patterns emerging from different civilizations. However, the end is non to cut down the criterion of life, while following these new managerial thoughts and patterns. The 2nd tendency is the instruction of the work force. As degrees of instruction rise, professionalism and quality of work life will besides increase, and in analogue to this tendency, pull offing this new expert work force will be a challenge. With the feminisation of organisational civilization, as adult females achieve more equal degrees of engagement in the workplace, their presence will for good change some of the basic constructs of today s organisation. As a consequence, today s constructs of callings and personal success will alter for adult females.
Furthermore, new technologies-particularly in communicating and information will change the manner concern is done in a really drastic mode and in really many different facets. The alteration will be more than of all time in the hereafter as today s computing machine industry is a really good indicant for that, so in the hereafter me may see increased protection of particularly organisations human assets. Besides, in the hereafter, the description of organisation will take a whole new significance, and the company of the hereafter will necessitate to be far more concerned with clients and far less with corporate protection and endurance schemes.
The hereafter is easy to foretell, because it is already go oning, says William Knoke in his book Bold New World. As we approach the new millenary, the concerns that win are the 1s utilizing advanced ways to make value for their clients. Therefore in the new millenary, the client will genuinely be the male monarch.
& # 8220 ; The twenty-first century will be the century of the consumer, & # 8221 ; says Roger Blackwell, a professor of selling at Ohio State Universi
ty and the writer of From Mind to Market: Reinventing the Retail Supply Chain ( HarperBusiness ) . “Marketers will hold to force their understanding beyond cognizing what people buy to cognizing why they buy.”
An analysis of authorities disbursement informations indicates that some startling alterations are already underway. Calculated with 1992 dollars, Americans spent $ 2.1 billion on computing machines in 1986, merely 0.32 per centum of the $ 614 billion they spent on nutrient and drinks that twelvemonth. But look in front to 2006: Harmonizing to the latest projections from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, computing machine outgos will surge to $ 666 billion 84 per centum of the $ 794 billion Americans will blast out for nutrient and drink.
C. 10 Driving Forces of Change for the Following Century
If you want to crush your competition and derive an border, Robert B. Tucker, the writer of Pull offing the Future: 10 Driving Forces of Change for the Following Century suggests that companies have to larn what & # 8217 ; s driving the alteration in how victorious concerns operate. Some of these drive forces harmonizing to him are: real-time reactivity, user friendliness, the issue of aging Baby Boomers and Generation Xers, mass customization, altering life styles, unbundled services, value distinction, high service, techno-edge, quality flawlessness. It is true that concerns are seeking to extinguish client waiting, whether in line, on clasp, or over clip, besides companies are rethinking their full operations to do what they offer more accessible, and user friendly. Furthermore, Baby Boomers, who are traveling to retire during the following two decennaries and the new Generation Xers, present the issue of cut downing and doing better usage of labour. More sophisticated clients demand more options and have it your manner solutions in both merchandises and services, therefore mass customization is inevitable. Another issue comes up as already 13 million Americans are freelance and work from place, and life styles are altering, so the concerns should take this into consideration in the hereafter. Businesses presents, are rethinking what services they can extinguish from their batting order every bit good as take downing engineering costs to give the client a lower monetary value and still do money ( e.g. computing machines for less than $ 1000 ) . On the other manus, some companies who can non take down their monetary values must add value to their merchandises and services continuously,
making first-class client service, making quality flawlessness and utilizing engineering to be ever on the competitory border. Tucker concludes his treatment with the undermentioned lines:
The new millenary promises anything but & # 8220 ; concern as usual. & # 8221 ; Company leaders need to proactively alteration with alteration, instead than respond to alter. Innovating and conveying new thoughts to life must take topographic point at every degree of the organisation. Resting on one & # 8217 ; s awards is non an option.
D. 12 Rules of Bill Gates for Succeeding in the Digital Age
Merely like Tucker, Bill Gates is besides foretelling the hereafter of concern anything but usual and in his new book, Business at the Speed of Thought, he offers a 12-step plan for companies desiring to make concern in the following millenary.
For cognition work:
1. Insist that communicating flow through the organisation over electronic mail so that you can move on intelligence with reflexlike velocity.
2. Study gross revenues informations online to happen forms and portion penetrations easy. Understand overall tendencies and personalise service for single clients.
3. Use PCs for concern analysis, and switch cognition workers into high-ranking thought work about merchandises, services, and profitableness.
4. Use digital tools to make cross-departmental practical squads that can portion knowledge and construct on each other s thoughts in existent clip, worldwide. Use digital systems to capture corporate history for usage by anyone.
5. Convert every paper procedure to a digital procedure, extinguishing administrative constrictions and liberating cognition workers for more of import undertakings.
For concern operations:
6. Use digital tools to extinguish single-task occupations or alter them into value-added occupations that use the accomplishments of a cognition worker.
7. Make a digital feedback cringle to better the efficiency of physical procedures and better the quality of the merchandises and services created. Every employee should be able to easy track all the cardinal prosodies.
8. Use digital systems to route client ailments instantly to the people who can better a merchandise or service.
9. Use digital communications to redefine the nature of your concern and the boundaries around your concern. Become larger and more significant or smaller and more confidant as the client state of affairs warrants.
For commercialism:
10. Trading information for clip. Decrease rhythm clip by utilizing digital minutess with all providers and spouses, and transform every concern procedure into just-in-time bringing.
11. Use digital bringing of gross revenues and service to extinguish the jobber from client minutess. If you are a jobber, use digital tools to add value to minutess.
12. Use digital tools to assist clients work out jobs for themselves, and reserve personal contact to react to complex, high-value client demands.
The kernel of these 12 regulations can be explained in one sentence ; usage digital tools, and it is true that these regulations are of import in transforming the companies for the new millenary. His book s premiss is: Thankss to engineering, the velocity of concern is speed uping at an of all time increasing rate, and to last, it must develop an substructure what Gates calls a digital nervous system that allows for the free motion of information inside a company, and being easy available to everyone throughout the company. Gates writes that The most meaningful manner to distinguish your company from your competition is to make an outstanding occupation with information. How you gather, manage, and usage information will find whether you win or lose.
After reading these 12 stairss, I came to recognize that there were some convergences with the stuffs we read in category every bit good as some of the other regulations I mentioned earlier. This is chiefly because the solutions for breaking the future organisation is non a secret to anyone. If one were to analyze and analyze the tendencies and merely take a closer expression at what is go oning at today s concern universe, one would come to recognize these stairss, or cardinal elements for success in the twenty-first Century.
In the chapter Knowledge Transfer of the book Working Knowledge by Thomas Davenport and Laurence Prusak, writers mention the importance of what they call the H2O ice chest talk, the self-generated meetings of workers at unexpected topographic points ; that is the importance of cognition and information transportation inside the company. Gates negotiations about the same issue in his 2nd measure, and emphasizes the significance of garnering informations at every measure of the manner and in every interaction with the clients. Davenport and Prusak explains this as ; In a knowledge-driven economic system, talk is existent work.
Since the twenty-first Century concerns are traveling to be chiefly knowledge-driven, talk across the different sections of the company is traveling to be important. Some companies like British Petroleum has already taken some stairss towards keeping information and transferring informations across different sections.
The BP Virtual Teamwork videoconferencing system is basically a silent cognition grapevine, a mechanism for associating the people with cognition to the people who need it. Another usage of engineering to reassign silent cognition can be seen in attempts of several organisations to enter the narratives and experience of its senior practicians on picture or Compact disc read-only memory before they leave the company.
To be portion of a web, and to be able to efficaciously work the information that circulates in the web, has become even more valuable than being able to bring forth new cognition autonomously. Gates references this in his 4th measure and gives illustrations that run from Coca-Cola s ability to download gross revenues from peddling machines to Microsoft s ain internal patterns, such as its trust on electronic mail for company broad communicating and transition of most paper processes to digital 1s. Microsoft has reduced the figure of paper signifiers from more than 1000 to a company-wide sum of 60 signifiers.
Most authors on organisations have long realized that to be adaptative and able to react quickly, most organisations have to deconcentrate. This is non a new thought, but with the new engineerings it is more possible than of all time.
Besides the importance of instruction and extremely skilled workers with high IQs is
another factor that Gates supports in head in his company s engaging procedure, and the word Bill ringers came out of this.
Furthermore, Gates besides sees the importance of a more sophisticated scope of clients in the new millenary and reconfirms the significance of the Customer is the male monarch theory and the importance of just-in-time concern procedures. Overall, Mr. Gates agrees with everyone else on the impression of alteration ; the redefining of concern and economic system in the following millenary.
4. Decision and Final Ideas
Any clip there is alteration, there is chance. So it is paramount that an organisation acquire energized instead than paralyzed says the CEO of General Electric.
To acquire you organisation energized, but non paralyzed ; this is the challenge for the director of the new millenary. It is true that historically talking at least, people get excited and at the same clip worried at the bend of every century. However, this is a alone one, non merely because it is the bend of a millenary, but besides history of humanity has ne’er seen such promotions in so many Fieldss, as the 1s that have occurred this last century.
One thing is certain. The organisations of the following century are traveling to be really different from the 1s which we knew in this one and much of the analysis and research done on this topic will be irrelevant. That leaves the concern people of today with really many inquiries, and nucleus challenges. I have talked about redefining the significance of Business and Economy throughout this whole paper, and this is the challenge. We have to rethink what an organisation is, conceptually, and why it exists, for what and for whom. It seems to me that this is a inquiry and a undertaking for a philosopher more than a research worker, or a concern individual. However, I believe that the chief challenge for the twenty-first Century organisation will be for full houses to be involved in advanced passages, while experimenting with new signifiers of organisation.
As I have mentioned at the really beginning of my paper, all the talk and statements on the hereafter of the organisation is conjectural and based on speculative scenarios. These scenarios provide us with penetrations, but they do non supply facts. Yet, both the analysis and scenarios on this topic should be taken into consideration as we are come ining into the new millenary.
In the book, The Organization of the Future, Charles Handy, who is besides the writer of the book Beyond Certainty, talks about the new scientific discipline, new linguistic communication and the new contract. Harmonizing to his theories, everything will alter in the manner we do concern. However, Bill Gates suggests the importance of what he calls the digital nervous system and how with the aid of engineering, and of class at this point, we should remind ourselves that Bill Gates is the 1 who owns a engineering and computing machine giant like Microsoft, and he will be the one to profit finally we can increase the speed of information, which will be the basic component of new manner of making concern.
Furthermore, harmonizing to an article in USA Today, the shaping concern tendencies in the twenty-first Century will change ;
Eight in 10 sentiment leaders ( involved in three or more political and societal activities in the past twelvemonth ) believe entrepreneurial activity will be the specifying concern tendency in the twenty-first century. Harmonizing to Roper Starch for Ernst & A ; Young, 76 % say engineering is driving the tendency, 53 % say growing economy/low rising prices, 45 % say societal factors ( two-income households, etc. ) , 33 % say globalized economic system, 25 % say large companies & # 8217 ; inability to introduce, and 22 % say authorities deregulating.
However, whatever will specify the concern tendencies of the new millenary, I believe that my original inquiry of where do you desire to travel tomorrow? will be the chief inquiry that every concern individual must inquire themselves, before taking any farther stairss, or following any new tendencies. This may be tough for no standard replies will be possible and available. But every bit long as the organisation knows where it wants to be in the hereafter and for whom and for what it exists in the present, the organisation will be able to find its ain fate in the new millenary. After all, as Charles Handy says ; we can non reject the hereafter merely because it is uncomfortable.
Mentions
1. Barker, Joel Arthur Paradigms: The Business of Detecting the Future. New York: HarperBusiness, 1993.
2. Belasco, James A. and Stayer, Ralph C. Flight of the Buffalo: Soaring to Excellence, Learning to Let Employees Lead. New York: Warner Books, Inc. 1993
3. Benveniste, Guy The Twenty-first Century Organization: Analyzing Current Trends-Imagining the Future. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1994
4. Davenport, Thomas H. and Prusak, Laurance Working Knowledge: How Organizations Manage What They Know, Boston, Massachusetts: Harvard Business School Press, 1998
5.Farmer, Richard N. Management in the Future. Belmont, California: Wadsworth Printing Company, Inc. , 1967
6. Galbraith, Jay R. and Lawler, Edward E. III and Associates Forming for the Future: The New Logic for Pull offing Complex Organizations, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1993
7. Gates, Bill Business @ Speed of Thought. New York: Warner Books, Inc. 1999
8. Hesselbein, Frances and Goldsmith, Marshall and Beckhard, Richard The Organization of the Future, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1997
9. Jamieson, David and O Mara, Julie Managing Workforce 2000: Deriving the Diversity Advantage, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1991
10. Keen, Peter G.W. Determining the Future: Business Design through Information Technology, Boston, Massachusetts: Harvard Business School Press, 1991
11. Senge, Peter M. The Fifth Discipline: The Art & A ; Practice of The Learning Organization, New York: Doubleday, 1994
12. Blackwell, Roger The New Millennium ; Century of the Consumer The Wall Street Journal, Dec. 9, 1997
13. Gates, Bill Bill Gates New Rules Time Magazine, March 22, 1999
14. Tucker, Robert B. Change for the Following Century Air Conditioning Contractors of America, Bulletin No. 171, 1996
15. Century of the Entrepreneur, USA Today, Dec. 29, 1998
16. Seiden, Michael J. Emerging Global Markets Call for Major Strategy Shifts by Businesses hypertext transfer protocol: //www.jewishaz.com/special/bizfin/global.html
17. hypertext transfer protocol: //www.Speed-of-Thought.com
