Not long ago, mass production, mass communication, and mass distribution impacted the way we worked. Efficiency was the goal. Economies of scale were achieved by large investments in capital equipment that brought down the unit cost through manufacturing, transporting, and selling in volume to consumers. IT compels us to replace mass production with mass customization. The widespread adoption of the Internet and electronic commerce has increased the importance of connectivity and allowed people to engage in individual communication rather than mass communication.
Technology allows producers to cheaply store and replicate past work on demand.
Through componentizing previous work, so it can be reused without additional effort, producers save the cost of repeating that work. By achieving better coordination within the producer's enterprise and its supply chain, IT can deliver a competitive advantage within the global marketplace. Knowledge and intellectual assets frequently contribute more value to business operations than physical assets. However, all ERP packages are incomplete and must be altered to fit an individual company's business processes. To accomplish this, producers hire skilled consultants and programmers who provide the systems integration necessary to modify and connect pre-packaged ERP applications to other applications within the enterprise.