The Impact of the Internet

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The Impact of the Internet
Since we are approaching the end of year, I was thinking back to the end of the 20th century. The year was 1999 and at the time I worked as an Internet strategy consultant at Cap Gemini Ernst & Young. I lectured and advised a range of senior executives about the consequences the Internet was going to have for their businesses and organizations.

I remember telling retailers that according to IDC global e-commerce revenue was going to reach several billion dollars within five years. I told people from the record industry they should move to completely new business models (for the younger people amongst you, at the time people were still buying music on CDs; iTunes and YouTube didn't exist yet). I told people from the banking industry that the Internet was going to revolutionize the relationship with their customers, required a total redesign of their back office systems, and was going to change their organizations (banking retail networks). Just to mention a few things ☺.

Hardly anyone believed me. People were responding: "... but Mr. de Jonge, we have been in this business for over 100 years and now you're telling us that all of this is going to change real soon, come on, surely you can't be serious, ha ha".
Obviously these people were wrong. But so was I, because the impact of the Internet turned out to be a lot bigger than even I imagined. A big part of that was caused by combining Internet with mobile technology into user-friendly smart phones (thanks to the creative genius of Steve Jobs).

Does that mean that we now more or less understand the future impact of the Internet? My 2 cents is that we do not, because we have just seen the beginning. There is more, much more yet to come. I believe most of that will be caused by combining internet technology with all kinds of other technologies. Google Glass and Apple Watch are just initial, obvious consumer examples.
Such combinations of the internet with other technologies will make things easier for people and completely change the way we communicate, live, learn, work, and manage our organizations and businesses. The impact of the Internet beyond 2015 will be a lot bigger than its impact until now. Do you agree?

		Comments by date▼ Comments by rating Rating
		Majed, United Kingdom
	3 The Question is 'Flexible Business Model' True, everything now predicts that technology will keep moving fast. Frankly we are addicted to our smart phones & iPads and are doing most things on it. Current business models of many firms are not flexible enough, they need more flexibility and continuous improvement.

		Emmanuel Daniel. Student (University), Tanzania
	1 It's Hard to Keep Up with Technology Changes Technology improvement is so rapidly growing, faster than we can anticipate. And who (business entity, government, country, individuals) can keep up with it at the nearly the same rate will win and control the world (a market, life or something with competition). Technology influences and will control almost everything.

		Scott Schaffer Partner, United States
	2 Future Impact of Combinations of Technologies Agree, that we are not even close to the end of the beginning. I also agree that we are currently in a phase focused on combining hard and soft technologies. One mini-phase I see is a more robust differentiation between personal and business technologies. I agree with Majed that taking advantage of innovation will require fundamental change in the way firms operate from an IT perspective. Most firms I have been associated with are strangled by IT rather than unleashed and there is much scope for organizational change leadership as a result.

		Sandy Szilage United States
	1 Impact of Internet Beyond 2015 Indeed, the Internet and technology in general have changed the world and will continue changing every aspect of our daily lives for many years to come. Technology keeps the world connected, it is a powerful tool that impacts the socioeconomic environment of the world. Success is highly dependent on technology.

		Augustine Manyau, Zimbabwe
	0 Impact of Internet Beyond 2015 It is at one's peril to deny that internet now dictates business and the way we live in even in a third world country like Zimbabwe. Internet has brought a lot of versatility in the way we conduct business such as banking among others. Everyone can do banking on their phones even those that have failed to open accounts in conventional banks due to stringent requirements. Through internet someone realized that suddenly there is an opportunity to do business with all by giving them an account on their phone. With a phone and internet anyone has the world on their finger tips.

		P S Grover Director, India
	2 Internet: Greatest Change Agent Ever It is true that internet technology is the greatest change agent ever seen. It is changing our lives, the way we live, behave, learn, communicate, interact among ourselves and so on. It has transformed many paradigms of life, as regards education, doing business, entertainment, traveling, health, etc. Life will become more comfortable, with new challenges. We will be able to estimate and measure many new things, such as emotions, inter-human relations, health parameters, intelligence, diseases and their levels, and other intractable aspects of life. This may lead to improvements in many ways, such as improvement of quality of life, delay of aging - longer life spans, control of diseases, ease of working, more leisure, and so on.

		Sachin Narayan Nagle Manager, India
	2 Influence of Internet on our Personal Lives Hi, currently everyone is getting dependent on the internet as the medium to connect to each other; it is having a very negative impact in the personal lives of the individual. People are not talking to each other, they are always on the smart phone even when they are sitting together. This is one of the major drawbacks of Internet and connectivity. They have built their world around the Smart phones. Even in the corporate environment, employees are not talking to each other. Rather they prefer to send emails for communication. What scenario will come in the future no one can think, only can pretend, but the impact will be very big that is for sure.

		Molokanova Professor, Ukraine
	1 The Price of the Internet on Humanity Yes, it's true, Internet has brought many good things in our lives. But it is a very huge danger. For any additional comfort you always have something to pay. And for the convenience and accessibility of Internet connections, I'm afraid, humanity may pay with very essence of human relations, depriving them of true love and more and more falling into a virtual illusion... Сommunicating with the computer takes out human energy. Communication with real nature gives it. Spend one day near the computer, and then spend one day in the nature and compare your state at the end of each day. All at once becomes clear!

		Martijn van der Werf Business Consultant, Netherlands
	2 Internet Will Bring Businesses Down I believe that the internet has shifted from being a satisfier or additional service to becoming the spinal core in many business models. Some businesses are depending on the internet and its applica (...)

		Martin Lekoski, Slovakia
	2 The Positive and Negative Impact of the Internet Indeed, the technology may have improved. The internet helped people connect from all around the world (something that couldn't be done before). All the information is now at our disposal by pressing (...)