Only then will executives come to appreciate that the Web isn't simply a valuable communication and information tool. 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.
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.