Impact of service orientation at the business level

The business environment is undergoing a dramatic change. Competition from traditional and nontraditional players, emergence of a multitude of delivery channels, a plethora of regulatory and governmental compliance requirements, and demands for more flexibility and agility, to name a few, influence business design and execution. Growth is returning to the agenda of CEOs, and most CEOs expect their enterprises to reach revenue growth by becoming more responsive. (1)

The demand for innovation, flexibility, and shorter time to market for new products and the desire to create new revenue sources has led to rethinking industry structures. Novel ideas, promoting the deconstruction (unbundling) of the corporation and enabling it to focus on its core business competencies, find increasingly broad acceptance. (2) Such deconstruction of the corporation naturally led to the emergence of collaborating ecosystems. (3) The manufacturing industry discovered the power of specialization and collaboration first and took it to new heights, closely followed by the electronics industry. (4) The services industry, perhaps as a backlash against unbridled consolidation, is now actively pursuing deconstruction. An IT (information technology) professional would observe that corporations are naturally becoming componentized.

The 11,500-square-foot store offers a broad selection of professional-grade furniture and settings, including flooring, cubicle dividers, desks, chairs, wall art, conference room configurations, lighting and even couches and coffee tables for more casual settings and waiting areas. Target Commercial Interiors is the largest provider of Steelcase brand office products in the Midwest, according to the company.

What is described here is a business that is able to recognize change as it is occurring and react appropriately, ahead of the competition, and keep pace with the demands of its customers, value-net partners, and employees alike. In trying to achieve this state, the business will need to leverage technology to the fullest. We call such a business an "on demand business." Fundamentally, becoming an on demand business is equivalent to achieving total business flexibility. Two important enablers contribute to the realization by an enterprise of this vision of on demand--componentization and service orientation.