Home | TrendTracker | PowerBlog Reviews | The Experts | Newsletter
ABOUT
SMALL BUSINESS TRENDS brings you daily updates on trends that influence the global small business market.
Anita Campbell, Editor
Past life: CEO, corporate executive, tech entrepreneur, retailer, general counsel, marketer, HR ... (more)
email me
free business magazines
FREE BUSINESS MAGAZINES
Trade publications FREE to qualified professionals. No hidden offers and no purchase necessary.
On Wall Street
The Deal
Computing Canada
CIO
Employee Benefit
Oracle Magazine
100+ additional titles. Click to browse.
ARCHIVES & SEARCH
Previous Small Business Trends articles can be found at the links below:
October 2003
November 2003
December 2003
January 2004
February 2004
March 2004
April 2004
May 2004
June 2004
July 2004
August 2004
September 2004
October 2004
November 2004
December 2004
January 2005
February 2005
March 2005
April 2005
May 2005
June 2005
July 2005
August 2005
September 2005
October 2005
November 2005
Or, use the search box below to find a
specific post:


NEWSLETTER
Sign up for our FREE Small Business Trends newsletter. (View Current)

We publish regularly and promise we won't share your email address with anyone. (Privacy Policy)
SMALL BIZ INFO & RESOURCES
BLOGS TO READ DAILY*
* Don’t have time to read several dozen blogs a day? Pick two or three. Your brain will thank you for it.
ONLINE COMMUNITIES
BLOG DIRECTORIES
THE BUZZ

SPECIAL RESOURCES
Small Business Trends Radio
Tuesdays, 1:00 PM Eastern U.S. time
on Voice America network
Click to listen

November 1st: Torsten Jacobi, CEO of Creative Weblogging, joins host Anita Campbell. Sponsored by Six Disciplines. Show details.
Monday, September 27, 2004
Changing Role of The Company
Later this week, September 30-October 1, a group is gathering at the Wharton School's SEI Center for Advanced Studies in management, to explore whether the traditional idea of what constitutes a company is obsolete. Their goal will be to reconcile the ways in which companies do business in the twenty-first century with the company model that first began to take shape with the writings of Adam Smith in the eighteenth century.

That model saw a company as the maker and seller of products. At its height it drove firms toward vertical integration. A company strove to own or control everything from the taking of raw materials out of the earth through the manufacture, distribution, and sale of the products those materials were turned into.

Today's global companies are more likely to be the managers of value chains in which many different companies control a part of the materials and processes that bring about the creation and distribution of products. That's not exactly news to anyone watching the business scene. But the results of the change just may be.

For example, it may effect how a company's value is determined. Bricks and mortar, machine tools, inventory, and other hard assets have historically been the heavyweights on a company's balance sheet. Today, maybe the strength of the value chain is more important than the real estate a company owns.

The SEI Center is conducting a survey to see how business executives around the world view the changing role of the company. You can participate by answering four questions.

It will be interesting to see what comes out of these discussions, and others like them that are bound to take place in the near future. One thing is for sure. Smaller enterprises are the recipients of much of the opportunity that the shift to a "value-chain economy" is bringing about. With the largest of companies no longer feeling a need for vertical integration, opportunity knocks for the agile, smaller players who can provide part of what the biggies need.
More news... more trends... more insight...

Home | Privacy | Terms | SmallBizTrends
(c) Copyright 2003 - 2005, Small Business Trends LLC. All rights reserved.