It's ideal for a small company with larger aspirations. Many small companies enter into contracts, partnerships and joint ventures quickly and dissolve them after a brief tenure. Communication is the key to this sort of nimble decision making. The Internet is a great facilitator for locating partners and collaborating on the work. The Internet is essential for a large company with a global client base and collaborative research projects with other companies at distant locations.
Many large companies have an Internet connection for their engineering staff.
Only a few of these companies, however, have organized to use the Internet strategically, to get closer to customers.