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by David R. Brousell, MA Editorial Staff   | Abstract: | In some ways, this year has seemed relatively calm, but a number of transformational business and technology trends picked up steam. |
On the surface, 2006 seems to have been just a steady-as-it-goes year. No dramatic shifts in the economy took place, despite manufacturers' concerns at the beginning of the year, and no landscape-changing events on the technology vendor front on the order of an Oracle takeover of PeopleSoft occurred. Moreover, there were no Katrina-like natural disasters (thank goodness) like we had in 2005. But just beneath the surface, a number of important business and technology trends, which began germinating in prior years, started to blossom in 2006. Chief among these was the often disruptive idea of business transformation, a concept that MA began talking about in 2003 while the industry was still in recession and caution was the watchword of the day. In 2006, business transformation -- with its underlying notion of dramatic change to spur growth -- became mainstream in industry discourse, a sign that the years ahead will see tangible manifestations of this strategy as manufacturers pick up the pace of reinvesting in plants and equipment. The results of a CEO survey by IBM in March underscored that business transformation was starting to take hold in the industry. [Click to continue] |