Technology has also increased both the speed and complexity with which information can be transferred and processed with dramatic impacts on the speed of communication. There are opportunities and threats in abundance. At face value the weakening of traditional boundaries may appear to have little relevance for a gold mining company. We would argue that the major players in any industry ignore the potentially profound, but as yet unidentified implications of globalisation and the information highway at their peril. Today more so than ever before the gold industry must develop its own market.
Grove points out that, managed wrongly, a strategic inflection point can mean the end of the game.
Managed right, it can turn into a powerful force. Ever improving technology and communication is increasing mining and exploration efficiency - new methods of surveying including satellite aerial photography, ever increasing sophistication in computer modelling of ore bodies, larger more cost effective plants, new methods of extracting gold, eg. This kind of change, continuous improvement, has itself become almost a constant. For the most part until recently demand for gold has consistently outstripped supply, and consequently the gold price has been relatively stable. Mining companies have sensibly focussed their attention on mining costs and exploration.