Mon 20 Oct 2008
During times of economic hardship, companies tend to take a look at themselves and begin to reassess. Most try to cut costs, reduce labor, and many try to realign their corporate ideals, thinking, and processes. From this reassessment comes the promise of success, since once the company has realigned, and the economy has righted itself, it should be in a better position to take advantage of the market.
That said, I’ve been watching a lot of process evolution in the last few months, and have come across a few key areas that are having a big impact on business and the marketplace at large. Similar to the technology revolution of the eighties and nineties, these changes in thinking and process are leading to some drastic evolutions in technology…so much so that we could be looking at a whole new technological revolution within the next five to ten years.
Over the next few posts, I’ll be talking about specific case examples, including the evolution of the internet with the adoption of cloud computing, the evolution of green technology with advancements in solar cells, the evolution of the automobiles with the creation of the GM Volt, and the current trend in separation between design and manufacturing using AMD and Apple as examples.
Hopefully over the course of these articles, we’ll stumble upon some emerging ideas and get a better grasp of the overarching themes heading into the next generation of business.