Mobile virtual enterprises. The future of electronic business and consumer services

Business operations have changed significantly over the last 30 years as technological and economic changes have driven increasing opportunities and competition. Most industrial companies have seen this change from product quality competition in the 1970s to product pricing competition in the 1980s to product availability and mix competition in the 1990s. Each new wave of competition has added new challenges to the previous business complexities. Fortunately, rapid technology and business process advances have assisted in managing these complexities, but as technology continues to advance, many companies have already begun to face the next big challenge, as consumers demand near-real-time product customization and personalization as well as immediate delivery to the point of need. This new challenge has begun to drive further business process advances, leading to the creation of dynamic and virtual supply chains, enabled by new technology advances that provide consumers with the level of service and configurability of products that will be demanded. Ubiquitous wireless access to information and applications will forever change the way that enterprises operate, be they enterprises of one consumer in isolation or large multi-national business enterprises. In fact, technology advances will forever change the definition of consumer and business enterprises, as economic and special-interest relationships are formed and dissolved more easily than ever before. This paper presents a vision of just such a future and discusses some of the evolutionary steps and challenges which will be encountered in reaching that vision.