What do you think will the 21st -century corporations look like?
We are currently living in the 21st century – the Information Age. Corporation targets to go global, where technology plays the most important role. The Corporation is undergoing radical transformation, the new Industrial Revolution.
The corporation's fate over the next century is as fascinating to contemplate as it is difficult to predict. But as a general proposition, there is no reason to think that the corporation has reached the limits of its adaptive powers. Over the decades, it has proven a remarkably flexible vehicle for spreading commercial risk (and reward) and for organizing investment on a great scale over vast geographic distances. As we speed ahead into a future that is unknowable by definition, it is useful to pause and glance in the rearview mirror. Today's corporation is not an empty vessel waiting to be filled by the future. It is the product of a long and tumultuous history, of opportunities grasped and crises overcome--and it is all the stronger for it.
The Net gives everyone in the organization, the ability to access a mind-boggling array of information in just a click, from anywhere. Instead of seeping out over months or years, ideas can be spread out around the globe in the blink of an eye. That means that the 21st century Corporation must adapt itself to management via the Web. 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.
And this rapid flow of information will permeate the organization. We could imagine that orders will be fulfilled electronically without a single phone call or piece of paper. The ''virtual financial close'' will put real-time sales and profit figures at every manager's fingertips via the click of a wireless phone or a spoken command to a computer. And in just a blink of an eye, everything you wanted to know about your company will come in just a second.
In the beginning, the global company was defined as one that simply sold its goods in overseas markets. Later, global companies assumed a manufacturing presence in numerous countries. The company of the future will call on talent and resources--especially intellectual capital--wherever they can be found around the globe, just as it will sell its goods and services around the globe. Indeed, the very notion of a headquarters country may no longer apply, as companies migrate to places of greatest advantage. The new global corporation might be based in the U.S. but do its software programming in Sri Lanka, its engineering in Germany, and its manufacturing in China. Every outpost will be seamlessly connected by the Net so that far-flung employees and freelancers can work together in real time. All this work will be done in an instant. With the use of the internet, speed is the biggest impact in terms of actions, deliberations, and information. And it leaves the old, process-oriented corporation in a total revamp. With everything from product cycles to employee turnover on fast-forward, there is simply not enough time for deliberation.
It is said that the very core of the 21st century Corporation is technology. It simply means that human minds and hands have been removed from an organization's most routine tasks and replaced them with computers and networks. Having this ideal to digitize everything from employee benefits to accounts receivables to product design cuts time, cost, and people from operations, resulting in huge savings and vast improvements in speed.
The truly great 21st century companies will recognize that the real power of technology is not just the ability to make a business more efficient but also its potential to spark transformative change. Much of that change will involve the company's relationship with its customers. In an era of unprecedented choice, in which prices and product specs for almost anything are only a click away, companies will have to offer a lot more than bargain prices.
True 21st century corporations will also learn to manage an elaborate network of external relationships. That far-reaching ecosystem of suppliers, partners, and contractors will allow them to focus on what they do best and farm everything else out. And it will let them quickly take advantage of fleeting opportunities without having to tie up vast amounts of capital. Outsourcing and partnering, of course, are hardly new. But in the coming century, such alliances will become more crucial.
Because of the spark of the rapid development of new technologies, particularly the Internet, the corporation is undergoing a radical transformation that is reaching far across the globe and in every corner of the world. From the early practices, features and structures, corporation in the 21st century will show off beyond what we can imagine.
Reference:
http://www.businessweek.com/common_frames
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