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Weekly UpdatesEXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Information technology and its results touch every aspect of our lives. Statistics reveal that If will be all ever more vital and multidimensional part of our daily lives. While the opportunities ale obvious, the challenges are often hidden.
12 TRENDS changing the world
A five-year research project reveals that the future of commerce worldwide will be greatly influenced by a dozen "global tectonics" that will affect business leaders across all industries:
1. Biotechnology
2. Nanotechnology
3. Information technology
4. Population
6. Urbanization
7. Resource management
8. Environmental degradation
9. knowledge dissemination
10. Economic integration
11. Conflict
12. Governance
In 1957, the United States, gripped by tear of nuclear attack and deeply involved ill the cold war, watched as the Soviet Union launched Sputnik I into space. That moment marked a new age in space exploration, innovation, and competition as the United States and the Soviet Union began the Space Race.
In response to what appeared to be Soviet technological advancement over the United States, President Eisenhower created the Advanced Research Project Agency. (ARPA would later add Defense to its name and be commonly known as DARPA.) It was ARPA, and the academics who led it, that fostered the start of innovation unlike any the world had ever seen. Hailed as the most influential agency in the history of computer development in the United States, ARPA was charged with developing technology to assure that the United States maintained a lead in applying state-of-the-art technology for military capabilities and to prevent technological surprise from adversaries.
With this charge, J.C.R. Licklider of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology became the first head of the computer research program at DARPA in 1962; it was Licklider (or "Lick" as he was known) who envisioned the Internet. He wrote a series of memos before his appointment at DARPA about an "intergalactic network" of computers that could communicate freely with each other. At that time, there were some 10,000 computers in existence, none of them personal computers and all of them slow by today's standards. Lick recognized the need for computers to be more accessible to humans, easier to work with, and connected to each other. He sold his DARPA co-workers on his revolutionary idea. Today, there are more than 800 million computers around the world, with 230 million in the United States alone.
In 1969, several efforts from around the globe came to a head with the development of the first host computer network connecting the University of California, Los Angeles to Stanford University. By the end of that year, four host computers were linked together and the host-to-host protocol was completed. The Internet was born.
Today, the Internet continues to spread to all parts of the world. The share of U.S. households with Internet access increased from 26.2 percent in December 1998 to 41.5 percent in August 2000 and to more than 60 percent by 2004. By 2003, the market was estimated at $6.9 billion in the United States alone. During the same period, the share of Americans using the Internet rose from 32.7 percent to 44.4 percent.
According to Neilson ratings, more than 200 million Americans--75 percent of the population--have access to the inferrer in their own homes. More than 60 million homes in Western Europe are now online. Despite the use of English as the base language of the internet, expansion of the World Wide Web outside the West has been substantial. An estimated 60 percent of the world's online population resides outside the United States. In Asia alone, the number of internet users grew to 64 million in 2003 and is expected to reach 370 million by 2006. In 2005, non-English-speaking countries have more people online than English-speaking countries, and their percentage of total use has increased 57 percent.
As the statistics reveal, information technology will be an ever more vital and multidimensional part of our daily lives--supporting our activities at home, work, and school. Although Internet access varies by income, education, race, age, and location, overall access has increased across all of these groups in the United States
Technology is present now to help people do everything faster, easier, and more efficiently. Computer systems help managers determine schedules for employees, shipment orders, product placement, and financial evaluations. As technology expands for business, it expands for personal use as well. Since its introduction in 1996, the Palm personal digital assistant has been sold to more than 20 million consumers worldwide. But as a testament to the speed at which today's hot technology can become yesterday's news, in 2004 the 8-year-old innovation had started to become archaic.
Information technology has more business applications than personal: it is revolutionizing entire industries. Banks, shipping companies, financial services firms, and a wide variety of other areas have been drastically altered as information technology emerged. In 2004 there were more than 380,000 automated teller machines in the United States, up from 187,000 in 1998. At present, ATMs outnumber banks and branch locations almost four to one in the United States.
Not even the fashion industry is free from the influx of technology. At Fashion Week in January 2005, FedEx and Xybernaut (a firm that designs wearable technology) introduced a mobile wearable computer. Both companies expect the new device to assist workers in efficiency and accuracy of shipments.
Most probably the best known aspect of this technological revolution has occurred in the area of communication. Today, anyone anywhere can access the Internet and read about news as it occurs halfway around the world. FedEx can ship anything anywhere in the world in two days, while the document's owner can track its process online through a regularly updated site. Radio-frequency identification allows companies to track the movement of not just boxes but individual items.
Communication capabilities extend even further for business. Increased communication means increased access to new markets. Companies can now access markets armed with information about the demographics, culture, tastes, preferences, and disposable income of their potential clients.
Now, through the use of wireless technology, more people, especially those in rural areas, are gaining access to the Internet. These areas now have access to communication and education never before available.
In the near future, the telecom industry will spearhead widespread use of wireless connectivity through handheld devices. The expansion will boost communication to new levels around the globe.
The potential of wireless communication is almost without limit. In the future, entire cities, states, possibly even countries will be connected through wireless Internet. Announced in February 2005 and expected to be fully functional within two years, Philadelphia plans to turn its entire city into a wireless hot spot. The $10 million project will provide internet access to 135 square miles of city in an unprecedented undertaking. The money the city expects to save ivy using the wireless network led officials to believe the project will pay for itself in just four years.
The future of wireless connectivity and its possibilities can only be imagined. At Penn State, the Center for Academic Computing is working with professors to develop interactive classrooms in which the professor can ask the class a question, the students can use their cell phones to text message a response, and the professor (even in a huge lecture hall) would have immediate feedback from hundreds of students.
In recent decades, information technology has fundamentally changed how people live, work, learn, and interact with one another. This major tectonic force will shape business, education, and economic development well into the future.
Business
For businesses, global IT strategies have resulted in an accompanying economic transformation. Corporations have invested heavily in IT to reduce inefficiencies, accelerate product delivery, and enhance services through automated processes. Information sharing across business units has improved interaction and communication, making it easier for corporations to reposition in existing markets and enter into new markets.
As IT continues to develop as an industry, the resulting technological advancements will make communication, information flow, and business transactions faster, more accurate, and less expensive. Like every successful technology, 1T-derived products and technologies will become more efficient, less costly, and maintain worldwide demand.
This presents both challenges and opportunity to the business world. The opportunities are obvious: better and faster communication, more contact with customers, tailored products, and more reliable supply chains. The challenges are often hidden. Technology can help companies in a number of ways, but it can also hurt those who do not take the time to assess which technologies will fit best with their mission. Faster computers don't help a firm that lacks computer-savvy employees. A faster supply chain cannot change the appeal for a product. Better marketing does not change levels of customer satisfaction.
There are fundamental rules of business that cannot be ignored because a new technology comes along. Amazon.com, with its tailored marketing and consumer tracking, has lost some brayers because customer service telephone numbers are difficult if not impossible to find on the site. Employees need to be trained to use a new technology and understand how to employ the vast array of programs available to them.
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