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| European Businesses See the Virtual Enterprise as The Future The vast majority of European companies believe the virtual enterprise is the way to increase profits and productivity for the future, according to new independent research commissioned by Nortel and the Communications Management Association (CMA). The research report – Virtual Enterprise 2006 – focused on 200 UK-based organisations that conduct business across Europe. It is the first survey in the region to capture business perceptions of the virtual enterprise. The survey defined the virtual enterprise as a 'human Internet' where customers, employees, partners and suppliers have access to information – and each other – from wherever they are and on whatever device. The survey found that 83 percent of respondents believe adoption of virtual enterprise solutions will increase to drive cost savings and improve efficiency. Most of the organisations surveyed (91 percent) already provide their employees with secure remote access to their internal network when needed. Flexible working capabilities and hot-desking facilities for teleworkers are being provided by the majority of respondents. The perceived benefits of making these provisions for employees were increased efficiency and productivity and a more flexible work environment for employees. Peter Kelly, president, Enterprise EMEA, Nortel said, "Virtualising any aspect of a business will bring advantages but as the research confirms, the full benefits of the virtual enterprise can only be realised by virtualising every aspect of an organization across processes and the workplace. Once this is achieved, the business benefits from agility, streamlined processes and cost savings". The survey found that organisations do perceive some barriers to the adoption of the virtual enterprise. Primary concerns are HR concerns relating to new management and organisational structures (68 percent), security issues (23 percent) and the cost of new technology (19 percent). The research also revealed a disparity between the pace of virtualisation of the workforce and that of partners and suppliers. The virtualisation of suppliers and partners appears to be a slower process. More than half (58 percent) of the organisations surveyed have already integrated suppliers or partners with their IT system. The companies that have already adopted the virtual enterprise model with partners and/or suppliers stated that their organisation have become more efficient and responsive. Despite the barriers, less than one fifth of the respondents stated that they do not plan to integrate their IT system with suppliers and/or partners. Glenn Powell, chief executive, CMA said, "We believe that the Virtual Enterprise is a critical business topic for our members and the enterprise at large, and hence we teamed with Nortel to commission this research. We were very interested to discover that although many of the respondents may not have been familiar with the term 'The Virtual Enterprise' they were acutely aware of the benefits of this model of working". write your comments about the article :: © 2006 Computing News :: home page |