There have been trends in corporate America over the past two decades that have dramatically altered the face of the traditional corporate landscape: a shift from hierarchical to horizontal corporate structure; globalization of markets and corporations; increased competition and increasing consumer demands; technology. However, technology has positioned itself as such a dramatic catalyst and necessity in today’s business world that it looms over all the other developments and trends-changing the very face of them rapidly. This analysis will discuss how technology is not only changing the way we do business, it’s changing the way we compete, market, satisfy consumer demands, and view labor while it also prompts the government to create a host of new legislation at the same time it is continuously changing itself with new and improved technology.
The increased competition among companies has resulted from the use of technology which can change a start-up business into a world-wide conglomerate nearly over night. In order to compete with other companies, innovative strategies are often utilized to gain a competitive edge on the competition. Take Cambridge Technology Partners Inc., who won a $10 million contract over rivals because they had their personnel go undercover and create a demand on Ryder TRS’ internal computer system, resulting in their being able to accurately gauge how long the job would take and how much it would cost (Auerbach B1). Yet, this undercover competitive strategy is only one way in which technology has changed business. Cambridge has also utilized innovative methods like this in order to change the very nature of how contracts are formed with other companies by changing the nature of the bidding process. Typically, open-ended contracts were negotiated which are often fraught with hidden charges and costly modifications as a job moves along to completion. Cambridge developed the “fixed-time/fix...