Basically enterprise in 2007 is the same that it was in 1950. It’s a group of people and means united for a shared purpose. So nothing has changed since. It’s reassuring. There are still products, equipment, customers and competitors. Looking at things this way we can say nothing has changed since 1920. What brought success in 1920, 1930….1950 may still work tomorrow.
Perharps it’s too simple. Indeed, and everybody will agree with that, the enterprise has changed a lot since then. I’d rather say it has adapted, sometimes inconsciouly. But adpating is not changing and comes a time where mico-adjustments are not enough anymore. I’ll only mention the views that are now being expressed at IBM or Ford : reinvent how the enterprise operates, reinvent the way you consider people inside the organization, reinvent its business model. When a car manufacturer says he has to change his model it’s like a century of absolute certainties that is collapsing.
It’s very important to understand this change in context if we want to make enterprises evolve to something more accurate and relevant considering today’s and toworrow world.
A quick tour of those changes is coming in the next notes….
To be continued…
