Software is an increasingly pervasive part of the New Economy. As a result, today’s general managers need to be aware of the most effective methods for developing and deploying software products and services within their organizations. Delegating such decisions to a technical staff, however skilled, can be a risky strategy. A study completed last year contains a surprising insight for managers: Dealing with the software revolution requires a process that is not revolutionary but evolutionary.
Evidence of the increasing importance of software abounds. In the United States alone, sales of software products and services exceeded $140 billion during 1998, a gain of more than 17% from the previous year.1 In 2000, the software industry’s contribution to the U.S. economy was expected to surpass that of the auto industry and overtake all other manufacturing industry groups for the first time.2 Employment in software-related positions is growing, too. In 1998, the U.S. software industry directly employed more than 800,000 people, with an average salary twice the national figure.3 More than 2 million people are now employed as software programmers, showing that software is not developed at a Microsoft or an Oracle but within the information-technology departments of large, traditional organizations.4
Software also is playing a larger role in the content delivered to customers in many industries.... To read the complete article, login or sign-up using the form below.
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