Enterprise Configuration

Abstract

The new economy requires a new enterprise organization. It obligates most companies to redefine their mission, goals, and strategy. The emerging 21st century enterprise is a more complex organization than the 20th century industrial enterprise. Since the enterprise consists of small teams running their affairs from a single office, the lean organization is also a subject of the emerging trend of outsourcing and creating partnerships. Managing those relationships will be the key strategy of the IT support. Enterprises that once handled everything internally now find they must concentrate on their core competencies, so they outsource much more than they once did. Moreover, many of the new relationships are international and global. In 1995, the Institute for the Future in Menlo Park, California, found that the number of international joint ventures has grown 25% a year since 1990. Time to reach market is critical when products have a competitive life span of one year, one month, one week, or one afternoon, as in the case of some products in financial services. Innovation, rather than access to resources, plant, and capital, is what counts most.