Manage all the changes driving your business in the 21st century!

In a time of unremitting, accelerating technological change, James W. Cortada offers a calm, intelligent path through the wilderness, helping managers understand the big picture and successfully manage the transition to the Internet economy. Cortada shows how to get past the hype associated with innovation, and leverage the best of the new technologies — without abandoning management fundamentals that are more important today than ever.

Management How the fundamentals of management will — and won't — apply in the 21st century Knowledge Master today's best practices for creating a learning organization Internet Leverage the Internet to build smarter, more efficient supply and value chains Work Understand how the new economy transforms work — and workers Strategy Choose a new future for your company — high-level approaches and step-by-step tasks

21st Century Business demonstrates how to manage and work as your firm transforms itself from an Industrial Age enterprise to a 21ST CENTURY BUSINESS, presenting street-wise strategies, guidelines, examples, and tips every manager can start using today. It's a masterful guide to what is changing, how to live in both worlds, and where your future sources of profit and personal success will come from.

21st Century Business is the first book that gives managers a broad, long-term perspective on the information age transformation — and translates that wisdom into strategies and tactics they can use right now.

James W. Cortada, one of the world's leading authorities on the management and history of information technology, offers profound insight into the changes that really matter. Equally important, he exposes the changes that will prove superficial or overhyped.

Integrating economics, demography, technology, and management case studies, Cortada demonstrates how work, workers, and management are really changing — and the fundamentals of business that haven't changed. Cortada shows how the Internet is really impacting the enterprise — and how to leverage it proactively, giving your supply chains new flexibility and power, without compromising processes that still work well.

Tomorrow's successful manager will go beyond keeping up with the latest "e-trends," applying the fundamentals of business management holistically, thoughtfully, and with a firm grip on reality, no matter what changes. For managers focused on what matters most, 21st Century Business offers sober, clearheaded guidance.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 2 Ratings

A practical guide to 21st century, but not easy to read... - 2002-11-05
Reviewer Rating:
It is the first time I'm reading a book from James W. Cortada and I can say that it was not an easy reading for me. The author is writing in the preface "The chapters help to catalog and rationalize the changes underway and how work must be done", but too much use of cataloguing and rationalizing is harmful for the reader who is losing his way in all the firsts, seconds, thirds, etc. at quite every page. It makes difficult to follow the thinking of the author.

Main idea developed in 21st century business is that change "is occurring more in an evolutionary rather than a revolutionary manner" and that "we must manage in an environment rooted in the past and yet stepping forward into a new future." This duality gives possibilities to build our future on past sound well chosen practices even if some "old knowledge and practices increasingly are competitive disadvantages as firms move from the Second Industrial Age into portions of the new Information Age."

James W. Cortada is showing us that the Information Age is more than technology and that managers need to understand that the sources of profit are changing. They need to understand how profits are made and to understand the effects of globalization and digitization within a context of emerging political realities. Information is becoming an important part of a new value proposition and must be leveraged by developing networks, learning organizations, and knowledge-workers.

Based on the evolution concept the author develops how to use best practices, benchmarking and process management approaches to give us the assets to understand how waves of change work and to create a virtuous circle for developing learning organizations.

But learning organizations are networks of knowledge workers, which are increasing in number with the emergence of information-based economy. That means that knowledge management is becoming an important part of a manager's job. To understand that knowledge management is operating within a business ecology, which can be described as an environment of enablers, inhibitors, and drivers is crucial to be able to leverage knowledge to generate profits in business or efficiencies and quality of performance in governments.

The use of Internet, which is a low-cost way of moving information around has a big impact on knowledge management, but also on work organization by enabling collaboration and alliances without constraints of space and time. This allows closer partnerships with suppliers, customers and even competitors, making organizations' traditional boundaries more flexible. But Internet is also an interactive tool with the impact on organizations moving from Second Industrial Age mass production to Information Age mass customization, when not made-to-order.

"The most important use of Internet today is in the fundamental redesign of supply chains", which "are making it possible to squeeze out inefficiencies, improving productivity while allowing firms to connect in new ways to suppliers and customers." The author is sharing with us IBM's interesting practical experience in this field.

The final chapter is showing us how we can manage the change to enter in the New Digital Economy, because "we have more control over the future of our enterprises than we realize."

This book is finally replacing the move to the "New Economy" in a context we are leaving in, and wants to convince us that we already have many tools in our hands to enter properly the Information Age. Some Great Reading at the end of the book consolidates the evolution approach demonstrated by giving us roots in the past literature.

The business world as it is today and will be tomorrow - 2001-01-20
Reviewer Rating:
I found this to be an insightful read with lots of ideas to ponder. Cortada hits on several hot buttons of the new economy--technology, continuous training and best practices, knowledge workers and knowledge management, the Internet, and supply chain management. He makes the important distinction that the changes going on today represent more than just technology. He talks about the search for the new value proposition, globabilization, how to leverage knowledge workers, the preeminence of the supply chain, and lots more. His book is not just descriptive. In several chapters he includes an "implications and actions" section that is very helpful in thinking about "what now?" The book also includes useful diagrams to illustrate his points.

At under 250 pages, it's a really good summary of what's going on in the new economy, and I highly recommend it.

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