Innovation as a Fuel for the Future

16 Apr
April 16, 2013

Only innovations ensure value creation and value creation, in turn, ensures work and prosperity. If you analyze this development on the microeconomic level, technological change and the related change of business processes play a key role in businesses. They are the driving forces of change and their joint effect triggers further dynamics.

The Internet, for instance, enabled chains of production across the time zones and 24-hour marketplaces that did not exist before. New technologies paved the way for the restructuring of value chains and business processes. This new structural and organizational situation, in turn, imposes new requirements on technological solutions. For instance, faster, bigger and more comprehensive solutions are needed or also ones that are more specialized. Read more →

Technology Coming Ever Closer to Us

10 Apr
April 10, 2013

In a word, humankind has used technology to come to grips with the world for millennia now. Today we are entering a new dimension. Technology is now bearing down on us, quite literally. Anyone who has looked into the future of medicine knows that technical implants and IT will have an instrumental role to play. Biotechnology is yet another chapter in the future story of medicine and is causing us to question our very understanding of what is human. But medicine is just one staging area for the technological revolution that will far overshadow the Industrial Revolution.

The financial sector is another area where technology is bearing down on us. IT has a key part to play. This fact, too, gives rise to a question. Are we handling technology correctly? What standards guide our thinking and action? Read more →

Renaissance of the Role of Human Beings

09 Apr
April 9, 2013

The future of knowledge in businesses and society is first and foremost a question of culture and technology. The evolution of technology has been far ahead of the evolution of corporate communication culture in many respects. That is why we are well advised to be more effective in linking together technology and culture. It is well worthwhile, for individuals and for the company and society. To this extent, IT is promoting a renaissance of the human being in the work world. Once again, human beings with their constantly changing knowledge and entrepreneurial skills are becoming more important than the static process.

Courage to Enter into Knowledge Partnerships

Many knowledge management projects in the past have failed. The available infrastructure may have been basically suitable, but companies simply forgot that their real knowledge resources were their employees, not the IT system. If a company does not have a culture of communication, it lacks the transparency and the right incentives. Mere technology can help very little. Read more →

Consumers Want More

08 Apr
April 8, 2013

The consumer paradigm causes a shift away from previous conditions that is similar to the shift from a seller’s market to a buyer’s market. Citizens increasingly view themselves as consumers of government services. They want reasonable value for the money. They want the government to be there for them—not the other way around. ICT is a significant driving force in making the government closer and more responsive to its citizens as consumers of government services. If citizens can use the Internet to organize major products and services they need for life, why shouldn’t the same be true for government services and requirements? Many governments are still in the early stages of development when it comes to e-government. Read more →