The Information-Based Corporation

The shift from an industrial economy to an information-based economy will have a major impact on the value of information and information technology. In order to fully harness the information potential, we need to understand better how to measure its value to the business, the customers, and the investors. Information technology enables management to communicate directly down into the organization and allows employees at the bottom to assume more responsibility. This flattening of the organization eliminates some of the need for extensive interpretation of policies. Information is the transforming resource. Using information technology to create and measure the value added per every aspect of the business will help realize the company's economic potential. The area with the greatest potential for return is the front line, thus, it is imperative to aggressively apply information technology there. Next, it is important to replace industrial-era and bureaucratic pay systems with reward systems that truly reflect employee/management responsibility for stakeholder relationships. Concurrent with changing reward systems, is the need to reward innovation in redesigning work by encouraging the use of information technology when it will improve quality, service, and the level of work performed. Over the previous decade, the electronic-data interchange has grown into major economic alliances supported by networks of information-based corporations. Stakeholders unified by these technology-supported economic alliances have helped their corporations achieve a competitive advantage in a global economy.