The future of the Internet is going to have profound effects on our personal and professional lives, and is certain to change the way corporations do business.
Advances in computers and communications are going to make the Internet more powerful and much easier to use, until it sheds all its current, unlovely flaws. Today the Internet requires at least an awareness of awkward addressing protocols (http://www.py178.org/gregsite/upload/K42/statscom/prog). This will disappear when computer agents or genies, which will be programs that act as personal assistants, can handle all the details of dealing with computer and communications systems.
Searching for information will become easy and fast instead of the irksome chore it is now. There are billions of dollars up for grabs to the websites that can make searching as easy and effective as possible, and it's inevitable that this will produce results.
The long waits we currently experience to download information will vanish as telecommunications technology explodes, prices collapse, and bandwidth floods the system. Eventually (and there will be a number of speed bumps), you'll be able to download something you want as fast as you change TV channels today.
Next, it will all be incredibly cheap. Just as today you can get free e-mail for life (the life of the provider), you will be offered free unlimited Internet use if you use, say, AT&T's long-distance phone service, or Roger's cable television service, or some such. In addition, information downloaded from the Net will either be free, or tolled at such a low level that you probably won't care, and it will include all media, including HDTV, 3-D TV, text, music, graphics, videoconferencing, and everything else.
Finally, instead of keeping you chained to your computer terminal and telephone, you'll wear your 'VPC' (Very Personal Computer) 24 hours a day, and it will give you access to all your personal information, all publicly available information, and serve as your telephone, television, and personal assistant. You'll be connected by wireless technology, and therefore have access wherever and whenever you want it.
In such a world, any desired, publicly-available information will be available instantly, virtually for free, simply by asking for it. New information or breaking news will be instantly disseminated to everyone who's interested, and when significant events occur, they'll trigger a race to see who can respond fastest. New preferences among customers will be picked up seconds after they begin to manifest, and companies will jump on them in order to be first to profit. And this means that employees will have to make instant decisions that can affect the entire future of the organization, potentially committing a significant fraction of the organization's resources to a venture without time to check their decision 'upstairs'.
If this seems far-fetched, it's exactly what happens today in the investment industry with the trading of stocks, bonds, money market securities, currencies, futures and options. Major investment companies have been brought down by the actions of low-level employees, as in the case of Barings Bank in the U.K. which was forced to sell out to ING Bank after one of its traders sustained gigantic losses. Now consider that this kind of instant decision-making will become the norm, not just in isolated industries, but in most of them, and for most employees not involved in menial or repetitive work.
This has two further implications. In such a world, the phrase 'our employees are our most important asset' will be the literal truth, and not just some trite corporate slogan. Your lowliest professional employees will effectively become partners in the business. You'll have to recruit, screen, train, treat, and pay them accordingly.
And second, in a world where instant decisions may be called for at any time, including ones that may involve setting major corporate policy by a young, new hire at the lowest level, it will be necessary for companies to have an overall strategy mapped out ahead of time to guide the (front-line) decision-makers.
Scenario planning allows you to consider what may happen, how it may happen, and decide, in consultation with the people that work with you, and to have pre-set contingency plans known and available to anyone in your organization who may be forced to improvise instant corporate policy. It's a way of 'rehearsing the future' a process that can be eye-opening, interesting, enjoyable, and reinforce your chances of survival.
The Internet is evolving with astonishing speed, and visibly re-shaping the business world. Have you thought through the implications, or are your technology decisions being made by people who did not grow up with today's technology, and may even be hostile towards it? Do you have the recruiting, training, compensation and planning processes in place to prepare for the changes to come? Or are you a sitting duck, just waiting for the future to happen to you?
© Copyright, IF Research, March 1999.
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