If so, then considerable attention needs to be paid to what has come to be known as 'the information infrastructure'. This monograph is written in the conviction that not only is this contention justified, but also that decisions are being made now that will determine the extent to which Australia is a successful participant in this brave new world. At the corporate level, in order to exploit their staff's innate creativity, most successful corporations have been de-emphasising hierarchy, and instead focusing on process. Middle-management layers have been thinned. Co-ordination is implemented as process rather than as policy manual.
Employees are increasingly mobile, and close to the corporation's suppliers and clients.
Non-core activities are increasingly outsourced to trustworthy contractors. The existing dominance of small business in the generation of wealth is actually increasing. To support this more dynamic pattern of corporate activity, communications must be sophisticated in terms of the services available, but simple, reliable, robust and resilient in their use, and inexpensive. The information age creates exciting possibilities for imaginative businessmen not only in domestic, but also in world markets. The kind of economy that we bequeath will be determined in large measure by the information infrastructure we establish in the current, critical five years before the turn of the century.