Companies Strive to Stay Ahead of Trends With Cisco’s Web 2.0 Tools

As communications techniques evolve, many of the world’s largest companies are striving to move ahead of the trends.
 
“I see a fundamental shift taking place in how businesses and other organizations operate, ” said Mark Dajani, the chief information officer at Kraft, in an interview with Cisco Systems’ Charles Waltner.  “Rather than work that is oriented to location, it will be much more oriented to output, which is really the crucial issue for a business based on knowledge workers. During the modern era, we created an infrastructure for the physical work place: offices and factories, then telephones, copiers, typewriters, and computers. And we’ve been programmed to get up, shower, drive to work, sit at a desk, work, drive home, then start it all over again the next day. Networking communications, however, is breaking down these established work structures and patterns. I don’t think it will lead to the elimination of headquarters and offices. These are crucial for developing an organizational culture, but the Internet and new communications options are now creating viable options to the old constructs of how people work and organizations function.”
 
Dajani also stressed the importance of eliminating issues surrounding social networking, a potentially valuable tool for any corporation’s communications:
 
“This is the same for all the other tools coming online, ” he said.  “My team’s job is to solve the problems so people can use these tools. We would be turning our backs on fundamental improvements in how we work if we tried to block social networking applications or mobile devices like smart phones. Certainly, new technologies will come with their set of challenges, but from my perspective, we don’t connect to the network; we live on the network. This is the new architectural approach we are striving toward at Kraft. It is one that makes it possible for all our employees, partners and customers to be always connected, so we can work anywhere, at anytime, and in whatever way is best.”