Every institution in the knowledge society has to be globally competitive.
The next society will be a knowledge society. Its three main characteristics will be:
- Borderlessness, because knowledge travels even more effortlessly than money.
- Upward mobility, available to everyone through easily acquired formal education.
- The potential for failure as well as success. Anyone can acquire the “means of production,” that is, the knowledge required for the job, but not everyone can win.
Together, those three characteristics will make the knowledge society a highly competitive one, for organizations and individuals alike.
Information technology, although only one of many new features of the next society, is already having one hugely important effect: it is allowing knowledge to spread near-instantly, and making it accessible to everyone. Given the ease and speed at which information travels, every institution in the knowledge society—not only businesses, but also schools, universities, hospitals, and increasingly, government agencies, too—has to be globally competitive, even though most organizations will continue to be local in their activities and in their markets. This is because the Internet will keep customers everywhere informed on what is available anywhere in the world, and at what price.
ACTION POINT: Find out how many customers you are losing because the Internet is making them more savvy about price. Decide whether to cut your prices to compete.
Managing in the Next Society
* Source: The Daily Drucker by Peter F. Drucker