7 Genuine value enhancing propositions for knowledge-based businesses, such as wage savings and larger talent pools far outweigh the somewhat antiquated notion that persuasive skills provide real value to customers. At the same time a knowledge-based business's investment in culture can be retained, albeit in a different way, through the new virtual world of work . Furthermore, telecommuting does not address time constraints and does not achieve the more significant cost savings noted when the Internet's capability to overcome space constraints is fully utilised. Otherwise, it is sad to say that for the laggards, the Internet really will change everything . For example, inexpensive, yet highly capable computer programmers from India provide support and coding skills for large, complex systems projects.
Virtual culture sustains such working units and also provides value to customers.
This group of cyber-workers is dedicated to developing the Netscape browser. Mr. Messer has extensive accounting and information systems work experience. His essays have appeared in journals in Canada, the United States and Great Britain and he has recently published a chapter on pricing aeronautical fees in the Handbook of Airline Finance , as well as an article on airports and e-commerce which appeared in Airports International and Ground Handling International. All contents copyright World Future Society, 2001. All rights reserved.