At its heart, the Web is a transformative tool that's changing business structures and operating models. The companies that are succeeding on the Web are those that have realized that the network is the company. As companies place increasing emphasis on the Web, it's the CIO's job to clue in management to the fact that the Web necessitates a shift in the role of the IS department. For many of today's business executives, there was a time when computers were relegated to crunching numbers in some back room for finance. The same people whom IS had to educate about the power of the PC need to understand that IS is no longer about bookkeeping IS is the vehicle the company must use to move on to its next iteration.
Strategy allows for planning and planning allows for tactics.
Unfortunately, our lives are so fraught with managing the tactics that we don't have time for making plans, to say nothing of thinking of strategy. Fortunately, however, thinking strategically is a skill that can be honed if not learned. When it comes to the Internet, companies need only look out about five years into the future before leaping from the world of the foreseeable and predictable into the realm of the possible. In taking some wild guesses as to what the Internet will hold in 10 years' time, there's an opportunity to do some thinking along the lines of science fiction. We can start by supposing that every appliance and device that runs on a battery or electricity will have an IP address.