By R. Ramraj

The key factors that differentiate today's e-World from the so-called Old World are that the concept of time has shrunk to Internet Time, and that the customer has become Queen in the true sense of the word. To measure up to the challenges that these factors throw up, corporations have to re-invent themselves. The old hierarchical organisation-structure has to give way to a loose confederation of knowledge-workers, led by intrapreneurs who orient themselves around the customer. This new networked world, where geography need not be a restrictive factor, has also thrown up an incredible opportunity for India to assert itself in the global market.

In the old, pre-e world, the biggest luxury that corporations had at their disposal was time. New ideas, new technologies, and new learnings took time to proliferate and disseminate around the world. This gave corporations the luxury of setting their pace. Although there was, indeed, competition, most competitors too operated in the same time-frame. Life cruised along at its own pace; even the rat-race was a lot slower than it is today.

Then came the Net, turning things topsy-turvy. Now, a company's customers are empowered to:

• See what is happening in any corner of the world.
• Articulate their needs in appropriate forums.
• Find corporations that can cater to their individual needs and wants-in a manner, place, and time that they can choose.
• Network smartly to get what they want.

This freedom of choice, accompanied by the blurring of traditional distance-imposed boundaries, is removing the security of time from the corporation's sphere of control. The parameters of operation are shifting to a new scale of time: Internet Time. Today, it is acknowledged that a month in Internet Time is equivalent to a conventional year-some even crash the month down to a week. This combination of customer-empowerment and the shrinkage of time has drastically reduced time-to-market as measured in Internet Time.

While the ubiquitous 'e' is empowering customers, it is also empowering the corporation. Corporations now have the tools to listen-really listen-to what their customers want. They can listen, understand, internalise, and deliver goods and services in record time to their customers. This reality has to permeate and seep into every corner of the millennial organisation. And the new organisation will have to re-orient itself around this.

The successful corporation will be one that makes optimal use of the tools that technology throws up, combining them with the all-encompassing power of the Net, and re-orients its organisational structure to rapidly meet the demands of its customers. Most corporations the world over are in the process of doing this. One example of an organisation that has successfully embraced the new paradigm, and has made the most of the opportunity to truly partner with customers that the Net has thrown up is Dell Computers. It is an organisation that has taken the traditional pc hardware business and re-configured it around customers, giving the big players a run for their money. Another company that comes to my mind as a good model of successfully shifting its operating paradigm is Federal Express. This, again, is an example of a corporation that has seriously listened to the needs of its customers, and re-oriented its business around their requirements.

These new paradigms throw up interesting challenges for the organisation of the 21st Century. Technology has ensured that routine tasks can be increasingly automated so that the supremely intelligent human brain is free to focus on-what else?-the customer and her needs. The transition from the robot-like physical worker to the knowledge-worker has been happening-more rapidly in some industries as compared to the others-and this can only get accelerated. The new organisational structure will be much more fluid. Today's rigid hierarchies will give way to more virtual teams formed by individuals with complementary skills getting together to deliver value to the customer.

The Net has ensured that traditional management theories built around economies of scale need not hold true any more. Big is no longer beautiful-or powerful. The organisation that manages to operate like a loose confederation of businesses run by intrapreneurs, who forge smart partnership to leverage complementary competencies so as to deliver value to the customer, will be the one that succeeds. That is because it is only these small businesses within businesses that can remain nimble-footed enough to deal with unseen competitors from across the world.

With structures becoming fluid, time-zones crashing, and the nature of jobs itself undergoing changes of such magnitude, existing human resources practices will have to evolve. Corporations too will have to evolve new ways to motivate, reward, and retain talent.

For India, the Net is like a God-send because it is a medium which ensures that you can remain in any corner of the world and still participate in and dominate global markets. This, combined with the intellect that Indians are known for, will ensure that, if we get our act together, Indian business can rapidly become a force to reckon with globally. The new environment gives Indian entrepreneurs a chance to reach out across geographical boundaries to establish a significant presence in the world markets. This will not only enable Indian corporates to retain both local as well as global talent to succeed in the marketplace, it could well be an answer to the brain-drain.

For the Indian corporation to develop a new management model, it first needs to open its mind and see the world that is literally at its feet. It needs to look beyond its traditional markets, and grab the opportunities that are being thrown its way. It needs to adopt customer understanding as its main mantra-and build its organisational structure and business processes around the customer. It will also have to learn to forge effective partnerships , and develop virtual teams to deliver the customer value. The constituents of such teams will come from not just within the organisation, but also from other complementary organisations. And last, but not least, the corporation has to re-orient its structure to create a context that can breed and encourage intrapreneurs who are able to compete in Internet Time.

R. Ramaraj is the CEO of Satyam Infoway

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