The virtual corporation

·         The virtual corporation:

            Electronic commerce goes hand in hand with changes that are occurring in corporations. The 1990s have seen the rise of a new form of industrial organization-the networked firm, sometimes known as the Virtual Organization.

            Information Technology (IT) has also undergone a significant change in the past quarter of a century. Electronic Commerce is the essence of the virtual corporation; it allows the organization to leverage information and communication resources with all its constituencies, including employees, customers, hankers, government agencies, suppliers, advertisement agencies, and the public.

Successful companies for turn-of –the-century environments

·         Organizational structures of the past: Vertical corporations where every function was performed in-house.

·         Organizational structures of late 1980s: horizontally integrated enterprises where core competencies were performed in-house and the rest were outsourced.

·         Organizational structures of late 1990s: Corporations are moving toward being fully integrated and virtual.

·         Aim at making all business functions world-class in order to enhance value (includes leveraging the world-class capabilities of strategic partners).

·         Access to all the world’s best of breeds, skills, knowledge, and resources.

·         Use combination of in sourcing and outsourcing to create best-of-breed, end-to-end solutions.

·         Overcome distance and time barriers.

·         The future is a network-centric model, where the corporation is the network paradigm is supreme: as more intelligent functions are embedded in the network, the network is becoming the computer, and the corporation is becoming the network.

·         Connectivity and bandwidth are becoming cheaper and easy to secure.

Network may be comprised of:

1.      A traditional enterprise network(the physical foundation of the corporation’s intra company communication facilities);

2.      An intranet(an overlay on the enterprise network which is a way to build uniform application, clients, and servers having the look and feel of internet applications);

3.      The internet, the inter enterprise network par excellence.

4.      Other intercompany specialized networks(e.g., the NYCL banking network)- these are sometimes called as Extranets; and

5.      International extensions.

   It would be desirable if this fundamental, company-distinguishing synthesis of communication facilities- what can be called an Omninet- would also carry voice, video, image, and other media in addition to the traditional data objects.

            What makes a virtual corporation successful is the scope, reach, compatibility, and transparency of the corporation’s networking infrastructure. Networking and networking management are the critical enablers of e-commerce.