Section Two
Technology also had massive impacts as well. The
Internet alone had an impact of epic pro-portions. Dot-com
companies and existing businesses created thousands of e-
business and e-commerce operations, employing some of the
labor force’s most talented workers. Companies providing
infrastructure for the Internet, such as Cisco Systems, Oracle,
Sun Microsystems, and Microsoft became some of the largest
companies in the world based on their market capitalization.
Developments such as these affect business and human
resources. It seems clear that the economic turbulence that
characterized the last of the twentieth century will continue into
the twenty-first century. Dynamic political and technological
environments are likely as well. During such times of rapid
change, the difficult processes of formulating viable competitive
strategies and planning for their implementation become even
more difficult as well as more important. Only some of the
developments that occurred at the turn of the century could
have been forecasted. Nonetheless, those organizations that
scanned the environment, developed strategies, and planned
alternatives for dealing with changing conditions probably fared
better than those that did not.
This section will identify issues and trends relevant to
strategy and human resources by following an environmental
scanning framework. The framework for scanning is composed