Vision

The main conclusion of the above is, that companies with a sound vision of their own future are better capable of implementing transformations in their business operations.

Without a vision, a company is doomed to a reactive policy. Typical features of a reactive policy are that a company takes few initiatives and mainly reacts to urgent external or internal developments. These developments can be trends, such as increasing costs, but they can also be sudden, for example the introduction of a new product by one of the competitors. Companies with a reactive attitude have a strong internal focus and concentrate for example mainly on costs and on business process redesign. Their external behaviour is that of a follower, who responds to the behaviour of customers, competition and government bodies.

A vision of the future enables a company to apply an active policy, aimed at the future. Companies with an active attitude deliberately influence their environment. They have their own vision on future developments. They prefer to hold the initiative and set their own trends in the market. A vision of the development of their own business operations and the use of IT is very important in this matter. With its attention for the proper configuration of IT resources in relation to its business operations, a company with an active policy will be better able to bridge the gap between conventional and collaborative systems. Clear business goals simplify the choice for the necessary IT. The company thus creates the time it needs to gradually implement the right IT and go through the required learning process. Thus, the company will be ahead of the competition in creating the possibility for the introduction of new products and services.

However, almost every company faces great changes in its sector of industry and great social changes, all of which greatly frustrate the development of a vision of the company's transformation. The constant turbulent developments often force companies to make immediate transformations of their organisation and they frustrate the development and implementation of a long-term policy. It is clear from all this, that a shared vision on the future of our society of individual people, companies and governments is lacking. What companies need is a new widely supported social development plan that points out the direction in which society intends to develop culturally, socially and economically. Such a development plan will form the basis for companies' own visions and development plans.