Trend #2 Innovate or evaporate is the mantra for the coming millennium. Few would argue that Bill Gates is among the best business strategists to have ever lived. He was barely nudged out by Henry Ford for Fortune magazine's Businessman of the Century. Whether one likes Bill Gates or despises him, no one can dispute that he has a genius for knowing where the market is headed. He also spoke one of the most profound truths for all businesses in the coming millennium. He said "Microsoft must continue to Innovate because the fact is that we are always just two years away from extinction." Trend #3 Communities mandating open access to the Internet will close the digital divide. It's already begun. In October 1999, the city of Portland, Oregon, told AT&T that if the company wanted to buy the local cable TV system and sell high-speed Internet access over those lines, then the company would have to allow customers to connect to the Internet provider of their choice. Essentially, Portland told the company that it would have to share the wires with its competitors. It's a confrontation that is being played out in city after city. The city of Portland is taking a stand for open access; the companies, for market share and profitability. We predict that Portland will win, because the Internet is not just a business development tool, it is the avenue of commerce for the coming century. And no single company is going to be allowed to own the pathway. Trend #4 The Internet will be the avenue of commerce for the next millennium, as "click-and-mortar" businesses replace conventional establishments. Business-to-business e-commerce and e-tail (electronic retail, for the uninitiated) collectively will generate trillions of dollars in revenue. Forrester Research puts the figure as high as $3.2 trillion by 2003. Virtually every single transaction will involve the Internet in some way. Here's our advice: Get online or get out of the way. Every retailer, every industry, risks getting "Amazoned" or being broadsided by another nimbler, more ambitious, more innovative or more customer-focused company. Says Jeff Bezos, Amazon's founder, "The notion is that

you take customers and put them at the center of their own universe." And he's right. That's the secret of success in the coming millennium. But that doesn't mean the end for more conventional establishments. What will evolve is the "click-and mortar" company. Conventional shops will form synergistic relationships with online sellers. In the next century the customer rules. Customer service will mean serving the customer wherever they are-online, off-line, on the telephone or through the mail. And, yes, Internet transactions will be taxed, but the taxing authority will have to be an international organization. Trend #5 In the coming century, there will be no such thing as a national economy. We have not even experienced the full potential of a global community that can reach out to anyone, anywhere, in real time. We have been anticipating a single, unified global economy for many years. By the end of the first decade of the 21st century, it will be fully realized. National economy will become an oxymoron, like plastic silverware, civil war or jumbo shrimp. Replacing it will be regional economic hubs feeding into one world economy. And as we integrate the world economy, we will also experience yet another economic shift. Trend #6 The engine of economic growth for the developed world is shifting again, this time from information to innovation. Information is the fuel that powers the engine, innovation is the output. Just as we moved out of the agrarian age into the industrial age, then shifted from industry to information. In the coming decades, technological advances will occur at a dizzying pace, faster than we can now imagine. Today, the time from introduction of new technology to obsolescence is about 18 months. By the end of the next decade, it will be six months. The telephone has been in existence for a century, yet by the 1990's, 50 percent of the world's population had never made a phone call. By the middle of the 21st century, more than 75 percent of the world's population will have cell phone

| Team Boston Home | The Sun Index | Page 1 | Page 2 | Page 3 | Page 4 |




GN=Center>
| Team Boston Home | The Sun Index | Page 1 | Page 2 | Page 3 | Page 4 |