ღ..21st Century Corporations..ღ

The 21st century corporation will not have one ideal form. Some will be completely virtual, wholly dependent on a network of suppliers, manufacturers, and distributors for their survival. Others, less so. Some of the most successful companies will be very small and very specialized; others will be gargantuan in size, scope, and complexity.

Many factors, from the need to expand beyond national borders to the inexorable shift toward intellectual capital, are driving change to corporations, but none is more important than the rise of Internet technologies. Like the steam engine or the assembly line, the Net has already become an advance with revolutionary consequences, most of which we have only begun to feel.

The Net gives everyone in the organization, from the lowliest clerk to the chairman of the board, the ability to access a mind-boggling array of information--instantaneously, from anywhere. Instead of seeping out over months or years, ideas can be zapped around the globe in the blink of an eye. That means that the 21st century corporation must adapt itself to management via the Web. It must be predicated on constant change, not stability, organized around networks, not rigid hierarchies, built on shifting partnerships and alliances, not self-sufficiency, and constructed on technological advantages, not bricks and mortar. Already, old business models that emphasized fixed assets, working capital, and economies of scale have become increasingly vulnerable to nimbler organizations that employ new technologies to reduce costs.

Leading-edge technology will enable workers on the bottom rungs of the organization to seize opportunity as it arises. Employees will increasingly feel the pressure to get breakthrough ideas to market first. Thus, the corporation will need to nurture an array of formal and informal networks to ensure that these ideas can speed into development. In the near future, companies will call on outside contractors to assemble teams of designers, prototype producers, manufacturers, and distributors to get the job done. Emerging technologies will allow employees and freelancers anywhere in the world to converse in numerous languages online without the need for a translator.

21st century corporations will be powered by high end technologies and therefore will be very lean in terms of manpower..