Today's businesses must adapt quickly to their changing environments. They need be able to harvest better information about their business, improve communications with their markets, vendors, and clients, and exploit more shrewdly the economies of scale.

They need to because their competition is doing just that. Information technology enables all of these things, and more, but itself imposes its own costs and challenges. Not the least of these challenges is the task of maintaining a complete uptodate skill set within your organization.

The information revolution has leveled the playing field in the sense that businesses of all sizes now have essentially the same access to information. Armed with now affordable new technology even the smallest of companies can compete head to head with the global giants. Improved access to information allows them to be more nimble in developing new products, attracting new customers, and marketing themselves.