A

brief look at corporate changes by the year 2040

By: Ashraf Shaker April.2010 When reviewing the changes that would impact a business by the year of 2040, we leave room for extensive speculation. According to Fundamentals of Management, there are three types of change within an organization, 1. Structure Changes, and this involves the changes within the work specializations, chain of commands, formalization and span of control. 2. Technology Changes, which involves the work processes, techniques and equipment. 3. People Changes, which revolves around behavior, attitude, perception and expectations of people. In my opinion, the major changes in these aspects wont happen until the availability of cheap and clean sources of energy that would be present in abundance. With the current trends of fuel prices, there is no doubt that fuel prices will continue to rise up, and the only outcome of such increase will keep pushing the global economy into finding more efficient ways since almost everything will be sensitive to that surge of costs. There is a huge difference in the trend the world will follow if by the year 2040 alternate sources of fuel is found, but in the event that the world will be still relying on the current methods of energy, the world will witness a growing need for economizing. First reviewing the technology, the trend of growth of internet usage in the past 10 years have shown exponential results, according to a presentation by Robert Pepper, Vice president Global Technology Policy, in 1996 projections were made that internet users around the world would not exceed 200 million users by 1999, actual results showed that by the year 2000, internet users reached 400 million user, and by 2007 had crossed the 1.2 billion user barrier (Pepper). The presentation also

describes various aspects regarding the growth of business usage of internet activities, and the various historical growth patterns that only lead to the assumption that the world relies more and more on information technology and the growth pattern defines how overwhelming the prospects of such technology and the influence on business capabilities. The effect this kind of change in technology on organizations will be greatly felt, it will allow wider incorporation of computers in all kinds of business operations and processes, allowing to share more information with ease and in real time. The impact technology has on us all is enormous, technology I believe will have a major effect on the organizational structure of corporations, not the other way around, and thats why I believe corporations will find that head office and facilities in various regions of the world will have better communication options and greater ease for the chain of command process. Another aspect will be the application of robotics in manufacturing which has been proven to be more and more practical for efficiency and quality control; this will probably lead to different specializations and greater centralization by companies for larger production capabilities. By 2040, managers will have better and more elaborate control over the means of purchasing, production and distribution activities all thanks to information technology and how it will affect day-to-day business activities.

References: 1. 2. Stephen P. Robbins, Mary Coulter, Nancy Langton. Fundamentals of Management, Fifth Edition. Pepper, Robert. Towards an Exabyte Broadband World, ICC 40th Annual Meeting, 26th October 2009