They posted online the question: Looking twenty years out into the future, what one characteristic — principle, practice, or structural feature — of the “modern” industrial organisation will appear to be the most antiquated or anachronistic?

They say that within a few weeks, it elicited more than a hundred responses from managers all over the world, including executives working for prominent multinationals like Dell, Philips, Infosys, Whirlpool, ArcelorMittal and Citi, as well as from individuals working in smaller companies and start-ups.

The gist of 20 responses listed in the write-up is disappointing. They are mostly confined to the structural, hierarchical and command and control aspects, with very little on principles and practices, or by way of profound or incisive insights on the shape of things to come. Here are three answers which are typical of the humdrum nature of the rest:

“Centralised management structure will seem most antiquated as the speed of business will continue to accelerate companies that thrive will be unencumbered with the command/control ways of the past.”

“Organisational hierarchy and the concomitant organisational control mechanisms that have accrued over the centuries will fade from the scene. Although it is always true that “one man can make a difference,” the perception of leadership as a one-man show will give way to the idea of distributed leadership throughout the organisation.”

“Rigid hierarchical system would be the most antiquated. Almost flat and flexible organisational structure, based on the roles one performs, will be the rule in coming years. This will allow greater interaction and innovation within new-age organisations.”

Not exactly such as to set the Potomac on fire, are they?

To me, the one feature that would appear the most antiquated or anachronistic 20 years hence is the concept of organisation itself.

There will be nothing like what today passes for organisation. No buildings, no cubicles of executives, no rows of staff, no conferencing, no commuting, no passing up and down and sideways of documents and data, no flashing of computer screens – in short, all familiar landmarks would have yielded place to a virtual, wireless, borderless world, running on a single digital currency, and perhaps with the help of a single language, with palm-held devices recording, coding, sifting and analysing transactions, and offering instant menus of options suited to given situations.

All decision-making and communication will be from wherever one is

There may still be need for manufacturing outfits, but production processes will be robotised, as indeed they are even today in certain industries. Orders will be directly fed into the robots which will take care of their execution and delivery in conformity with specifications at the specified time.

Meanwhile, technologies, especially in the field of materials science, non-conventional and renewable sources of energy, including bio-fuel and cold fusion and genomics would be so far advanced as to bring about convertibility of any material into any other, elimination of disease and comforts for the asking.

There will be no need for huge outlays on any enterprise, and this will result in a phenomenal fall in overheads.

Fanciful? Not more so than the marvels of science and technology, social engineering, economic miracles, impressive improvement in the quality of life and the revolution in life style that one sees today.

Not more so than how mention of television and space travel would have sounded to our great grandfathers.

We ain’t seen nothing yet. You think it, and it is going to happen!

B.S.RAGHAVAN

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