Over the last decade, the Internet has transformed many aspects of the way business is conducted — from how goods are bought and sold to where work is done. In this extended interview, Erik Brynjolfsson, professor of management at the MIT Sloan School of Management, and Andrew P. McAfee, associate professor of business administration at Harvard Business School, discuss how the use of Web 2.0 technologies will blossom to support innovation, creativity and information sharing rather than just to achieve cost cutting. They explore the complementary relationship between traditional managerial tools, such as ERP and CRM, and the evolving modes of collaboration and communication, such as wikis. They also touch on what they believe will be a corporate cultural shift away from the classic notions of productivity and output, such as billable hours— a shift that neither Brynjolfsson nor McAfee believes will evolve solely as a result of advances in technology. Indeed, they say that managers will have greater responsibility to increase the ambient level of participation in and contribution to these Enterprise 2.0 environments.
Companies cited in the discussion include Google, retail pharmacy chain CVS, Spanish fashion retailer Zara and Canadian software developer Cambrian House.
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