The other group is small groups of people such as a team of consultants working on a project. An example of this is at VeriFone. CEO Hatim Tyabji lives in Redwood City, California, works on his laptop, and has banned all secretaries and paper correspondence. The chief information officer lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and its head of human resources lives outside Dallas. One-third of VeriFone s 2,500 people is away from the office at least half the time.
All business is conducted through the company s electronic infrastructure.
Global competition is becoming more and more a reality as we approach the twenty-first century. Competition between existing players is getting fiercer than ever, and the ability to deliver the product quickly anywhere in the world is becoming essential on order to survive. This new century requires new capabilities and skills in order to defend positions held and to conquer new ones. It may mean that it will be necessary to unlearn old skills that got the company ahead in the first place and adopt new ones. More people are finding that things they always felt were core can be done by someone else and maybe cheaper, better, and faster.