Essay on Information Technology and the Impact on the Future Work Culture

Introduction:

Advances in information technology will revolutionize human civilization. Never before has knowledge been so
easily as instantly accessible as it is now. Information has the power to change culture customs and communities.

Development of Thought:

No other technology in the last 300 years has had the kind of impact that information technology will have on the
social, political and economic fabric of society. Information technology will change the way we think, act, educate,
and associate.

The Information revolution will have far-reaching implications on political ideologies and social thought- It will
invade not only offices and homes but also farms and fields, health centers and hospitals and many other critical
activities and areas of production, services and development.

It will help cross social barriers and national boundaries and network people from every part of the world,
irrespective on their nationalities.

Conclusion:

The new vistas of knowledge opened up by the information revolution will have far-reaching impact. It will break
down barriers, foster freedom and democratic values and help harness human talent for global peace and co-
operation rather than war and confrontation.

Information is essentially a starting point for knowledge. Knowledge is required for decision making and for
taking initiative.

It is only through initiative that one can take appropriate action to implement ideas, programmes and projects. It
will provide new tools to deal with knowledge, and as a result, will have far- reaching implications on the future
decision-making process.

Information Technology has come as a force to move our cultures, customs and communities and advance human
civilization. In the process, it will find new applications. Create new jobs and bring equality. It is generally
believed that information technology is only for the rich and the affluent and is needed only in a modern work
environment.

However, information technology is equally useful in population control, health services, agriculture, water
management, transport and other major infrastructures along with steel mills, business centers, and travel
agencies.

Developed nations of the West have emphasized and utilized information technology for automation, artificial
intelligence, robotics and many other advanced applications.

In developing nations, the same information technology can be equally used to provide basic human needs and
improve standards of living- however; proper appreciation and application of this technology require a new
information culture and a new orientation.

The- need for information developed during what we may call the agricultural civilization. To enhance
agricultural activities, it was necessary to share information and knowledge in society. With agriculture, various
communities developed and their need for information developed further.

Earlier, transfer and exchange of information were done orally. Then, with the print media, information
knowledge achieved a broader reach.

With the introduction of the electronics technology the concept of information storage, processing and transfer
has changed drastically. Now it is possible to move information with the speed of light across the globe.
In the early days, only selective pieces of information related to secret services and security were sold
confidentially. Now, information has become a commodity and is available on the shelves of department stores,
properly packaged and openly priced.

Today, information regarding people, places, products, prices, plans, projects and programmes can be easily
marketed through the electronic media.

There are thousands of companies all over the world, with millions of people engaged in information processing
and programming activities.

In traditional systems, information is considered to be power and power is difficult to share. People normally
hold on to information and are very selective about sharing, it with others. The modern information systems are
designed to bring openness, accessibility, accountability and connectivity.

With modern, electronics hardware, information is available on computer and television terminals to everybody
in a variety of forms and formats, this forces openness.

Information technology is bound to bring about cultural transformation in many developing and socialist nations.
The information thread will help in networking various cultures and conflicts. New information systems also
provide accessibility and connectivity.

Together, these two concepts provide networking of information and people the world over. Now large data bases
are accessible freely to people through international telecom networks. These data bases contain a variety of
information on technology, trade, business, patents, travel, entertainment, and finance, for people to share and
interact.

Through these, specialists get connected to one another to enhance their knowledge and interests. By providing
an interactive capability these networks serve a special role in networking international talent.

Today we are moving products and tomorrow we would be moving ideas. The nineteenth the twentieth century
transport systems will be inadequate in the twenty-first century. Moving ideas and information is more difficult
and will require a great deal of innovations.

In the nineteenth century, we had post offices to move ideas through letters and in the twentieth century, we have
telecom to "love ideas through voice communication for the twenty-first century, we are building information
highways with new kinds of structures to move knowledge and ideas in an integrated environment to combine the
human voice, computer graphics, data and video pictures. This will also require new standards, compatibility and
connectivity.

For this- new laws will have to be formulated, and new discipline created. This will have far-reaching impact on
our concept of transporting people, ideas thoughts, actions and information.

If information and ideas can be flown and floated, movement of people can be minimized and future investments
in infrastructure for rail and road transport can be reduced.

Along with in formation exchange at electronic speeds, the concept of time will change mainly because
information would now be available in "real time' with increased accessibility and connectivity.

Needless to say, with reduced response time for information exchange the travel time for interaction between
people will also have to be reduced. Today, travel takes too much time: people are constantly commuting to
interact face to face. Some multinational executives spend most of their times on jets.

This will have to be reduced significantly to enable one to touch any part of the globe and return to his office the
same day. What takes 24 hours to travel today will have to take two to four hours to match gains from the speedy
information exchange in the next century.

As interaction- with machines carrying information becomes common, more and more social relationships will be
mediated by machines. Today, for example, insurance claims, banking, travel services, medical diagnostics,
require a great deal of interaction with human beings to fill forms, arrange payments, negotiate differences, etc.
It's the future as machines begin to perform these functions, social interactions .and relations will also change.
We shall no longer be talking to our insurance agents for our claims.

We shall feed in the data and the machines will give us the answers. We may be sitting at home with a terminal
talking to a machine in place of making a telephone call to an insurance agent. With terminals we shall be
interacting with a computer at the other end.

The new technology will definitely make it easier for us to disseminate news, information, ideas and messages. It
will make distribution much wider and quicker.

However, there is a danger. Since this information will have a larger reach with accessibility to all levels of people
in a society, it will need to be accurate. But accuracy will be difficult when millions of pieces of information float
around at various levels to various individuals and institutions with conflicting priorities and perceptions.

It will be difficult to distinguish fact from fiction, right from wrong, and proper from improper. This information
and misinformation will be easy to broadcast to the relevant people and places to create confusion.

With a few multinationals dominating information technology and associated networking of people and data,
people in the developing world are concerned about the dependency and cultural impact on their societies.
Imported technology may mean imported values and imported needs, feelings, thoughts, vision and views.

In many parts of the developing world, the TV, which was supposed to be a tool for education, has essentially
become a tool to promote Western values. There is this danger also in information technology. The battle between
the countries which possess technology and those which need it for basic development will go on in the next
century.

As technologies begin to integrate, economies and cultures will also integrate slowly but surely. As economies
integrate, hopefully jobs will integrate and ultimately a universal culture may evolve in the next century.

The significant part of the information revolution of today and tomorrow has a lot do with the merger of
communication and computer technologies.

The telecommunication technology of today interconnects over 500 million telephones for over five billion people
the world over, which are both the source and the final destination of the information. Traditionally, only the
human mind could generate process to receive and create information by observation, conversation, interaction,
imagination and thinking.

Today, a part of these processes have been taken over by the electronic machines capable of deducing, and
sensing information. Machines are now also capable of storing, retrieving, transferring and transmitting
information.

Telecom highways, which interconnect over five million telephones, have been effectively used to transfer
information by telephone, telex, electronic mail, radio, satellite, etc.

To these, computers are added to assist in processing and storage. As a result of this merger, we can now select
and retrieve instantly what we need and when we need with a great deal of precision. Never before has knowledge
been so easily and instantly accessible.

With the merger of communication and computers, global networks have become a powerful tool for economic,
social and political change by offering more choices to network; people and information to everyone throughout
the world.

These networks are used to exchange ideas and information between individuals, business organizations and,
most important, to keep pace with others. Earlier, we thought that speech communication sufficed for the
promotion of understanding.

Now it is well accepted that data communication is equally essential for promotion of better trade and business
(for information on inventory, market demands, financial needs, product perspectives, cost and other
parameters).
These modern networks provide a higher degree of communication between various users and thus provide a
higher degree of understanding and appreciation of one another's requirements.

Information technology is finding applications in office, factories and many other areas vital for meeting basic
human needs such as water, energy, health, etc.

The office of the future concept, with electronics technology, is aimed at creating paperless offices to document,
file and transmit information at electronic speed. In a normal office environment there is an explosion of
information. More information does not make work and decision making easier.

What is needed is relevant knowledge out of the large information base. The office of the future relates to vary
many new requirements and facilities such as electronic mail, word processor, electronic filing, conferencing,

Data-base management, fax, and variety of other new features and facilities. The entire focus is on increasing
productivity and efficiency of the white collar and managerial work force.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars are spent in equipment and machinery on production floor to enhance the
productivity of blue collar workers. However, when an office worker is appointed, normally he is given only a
desk, a chair, and some paper and pencils.

It is only recently that some new tools have been developed to improve office productivity. The starting point in
this area was an electric typewriter for the office secretary. Now, this has changed to fancy computer aided design
equipment for engineers and programme management tools for executives and managers.

On an average, a manager spends 60 per cent of his or her time in meetings and a significant time on telephoning,
communicating and coordinating.

The task of automating more complex managerial and engineering jobs involves innovative solutions. The task of
secretarial activities is relatively simple and straight forward because it deals only with typing, scheduling
meetings, filing, etc.

The pressure for electronic offices has come from the competitive environment, internally within the organization
and externally from the marketplace. The internal environment relates to the demand for faster growth, more
productivity, cost savings, and material savings in order to increase profitability.

This demand comes in the form of pressure from the bosses and the board. Similarly, employees demand higher
wages, higher benefits, education allowances and improvement in the work environment which requires an
increase in investment.

The external pressure comes from competitiveness, inflation, higher interest rate energy shortages, and new
investments, need for new talent and skilled workers labour laws and many other areas.

The real external pressure comes from the role of innovations in tie field to generate new technologies and new
products. These pressures essentially, demands performance from the executives, the manages and the marketing
people who in turn need to improve their tools.

Today, all kinds of special hardware and software packages are available to configure new office environment.
The office of the future will be wired for information outlet as for electricity through this outlet, all kinds of
information, related to hardware and software productions, such as electronic mail, energy management,
security, fire alarms, etc., can be connected through simple plug- in devices.

Though today this is a distant dream because of the lack of interface and standards, in the next decades it will be
available in many parts of the world. This concept will not only integrate building wiring for voice and data, but
will also integrate a variety of services and facilities, some known and others not yet known.

To survive in the competitive environment of the future, management throughout the world is being forced to
convert into reality the concept of the office of the future.
The factories of the future with emphasize application of information technology on the production floor to
improve productivity and efficiency, quality and competitiveness.

The present factory normally focuses on four fundament elements, namely man, material, machine and money.
All factories have evolved essentially because of interaction between man and material.

Machines were given to increase productivity and money was required as an input to set up the infrastructure. In
today's environment all issues related to these four fundamental elements have become very complex and
difficult to deal with manually.

Most manufacturing process involves a large variety of operations. Today's ever-changing environment demands
short delivery cycles, minimum re-work, re-make, and constant flow of material. In today's complex environment,
manufacturing challenges lie in the ability to decrease delays, reduce labour costs, improve inventory
management and increase profits.

This becomes even more challenging because our products are becoming complex and our services even more
complex. In most, manufacturing operations now, the emphasis is on changing from economies of scale to
economies of scope.

All this requires highly complex information system for production planning, materials management, shop floor
control, financial management and many others activates. It is only through sophisticated tools like these that
proper return on investment and return on assets can be guaranteed.

Modern manufacturing systems deal with five major areas of production. These are production planning,
materials management, sales order entry, financial management and various other special systems related to
automation, control, artificial intelligence and robotics.

The key to these systems lies in the appropriate software and flexibility to implement many of the standard
manufacturing methods and practices. For example, production planning begins with the definition for
parameters on various departments and process coupled with information on customers, employees, products
and standards.

With this kind of data base, production planning provides order entry, production scheduling, quality control,
production statistics and overall scheduling, forecasting and long-term visibility.

The idea is to monitor at every stage in the production process, to optimize performance and reduce cost. Many of
these systems in the Western world are designed to automate everything from order input to final production and
shipping documents.

There is a great deal of flexibility at every point in the production line to manage and monitor various parameters
to improve performance. The heart of the production planning system in today's competitive world is materials
management, commonly known as MRP (Material Requirement Planning).

Because of heavy investments in the materials to be purchased from the globally competitive market, it is
important to schedule materials to achieve a minimum inventory.

This is known as the 'just in time' method of materials management which has been highly successful in Japan.
Along with MRP, standard financial management system to include information on account payable, account
receivable, general ledger, pay roll, invoice, etc., is also necessary.

To integrate production planning, it is essential to tie computer-aided design process, control and other
instrumentation and automation equipment together through such integrated systems, proper discipline is
infused on the shop floor with control on quality and the expected quantum of everyone's daily output This also
gives the needed visibility to management to analyze the production performance.

Making information systems an integral part of the factory of the future is a very complex and cumbersome
process. It requires coordination at various ' levels with people from various departments and disciplines in the
company. In general, people on the factory floor are used to routine periodic tasks and are not very open to
innovations and experimentation. For a factory of the future concept to be a reality, first their minds have to be
changed through proper training; he is only through their cooperation that information technology can succeed
on the production floor.

Those who have successfully implemented some of these concepts have shown an increase in productivity of up to
40 per cent, reduction in overtime by about 90 per cent, reduction in delivery time by some 20 per cent and many
other improvements which are essential for competing in the global market-place.

No one had earlier articulated and appreciated the role of information systems for providing-drinking water in
rural India. In fact, as a part of the mission exercise, there were over 300 different forms related to rural drinking
water activities.

They came in all sizes and shapes with a variety of rows and columns asking for all types of relevant and
irrelevant data. It was clear that this information had to be organized sorted, collected, filtered and standardized.
Finally the 300 forms were reduced to 12. The impact of this exercise on productivity and efficiency was
significant.

Many are afraid that modern information systems could be effectively used to centralize more and more powers
and could be counter-productive in a democratic society. The power of information could than be used in a
centralized system against the people at large.

It is true that information can be created and it can be destroyed and it does have a potential for great good and
great evil. But, it is also true that modem information systems through networking give larger accessibility and as
a result it is indeed difficult to control and manipulate information in isolation.

We believe that the phase where information, centralized, could be used as source of power is over. No amount of
effort now will keep information isolated and concentrated in the hands of a few.

In the modern world with ever-developing sophisticated facilities and services, the rate of information exchange
determines the rate of successes or failures in the corporate world.

Technological developments invariably increase the time for leisure and as a result generate more consumption
capacity for society. Normally, people of the lower class do not have the resources to consume new technological
toys tools, while the upper class do net have the time.

They are more active with new information interactions and do not need to tinker with technology directly-result,
people of the middle class, more specifically the upper middle class, create demand and consumption for the new
technology and tools.

They have the purchasing power time and resources needed to experiment and they consume technology-based
commodities more readily.

As the world moves away from capital intensive industrial base to knowledge intensive information base, the role
of the service sector will increase substantially.

As more and more manufacturing goods are produced with less and less people, through better productivity,
efficiency, automation, robotics and other information related technologies, additional jobs will be created for the
service sectors.

In other words hard manufacturing jobs requiring muscle power and routine work on the production floor will be
reduced and more soft jobs requiring brain power, knowledge, creativity and human interactions will increase in
offices.

These jobs will be in the areas of financial services, insurance, travel, leisure, customer interface, design,
marketing, sales promotion, public relations, etc.

Knowledge doubles every five years, creating the need for new skills. Some of these skills are required only to
keep the technology going and innovations flowing. As a result to some extent, they have an overtone of
requirements of the advanced Western nations.
Developing and socialist nations normally are far behind in developing these technologies, and take some time in
creating a significant number of these new jobs. The old jobs and functions are still predominant in the
developing world. Until work gets modernized, they cannot be eliminated.

These old jobs relate to routine functions, provide little job satisfaction, and require very little information
content. They also relate to specific tusks to be performed in isolation and do not require much interpersonal
relationship or interaction for an exchange of information.

It is believed that today we have roughly 40,000 different kinds of jobs. These can be compared to hundreds of
castes that prevailed in the early Indian system, to identify specific job functions being performed by various
groups of People.

It is estimated that over 10 million new jobs will be created in highly skilled information-related activities in the
next decade. These jobs in the service sector will relate either to managerial functions or to technical and service
functions. This will, no doubt, eliminate and upgrade some of the existing jobs.

For example, in advanced nations jobs like those of peons, file clerks, elevator operators, etc., are no longer
useful. Instead, flew jobs like those of computer operators, receptionists, programmers, system analysts, etc., are
very common in the new work places.

All future jobs will have large information content. These will essentially be Jobs in the softer sector with service
orientation and will demand new management techniques.

The new jobs will have more to do with one's mind than with one hands. They will have a lot more to with leisure
than with labour and training than with tools. They will require more entrepreneurship than energy.

These new jobs will, no doubt, bring new organizational structures. Today's hierarchical structure, which is based
on command and control from the top will have to be replaced with one suitable for knowledgeable and educated
workers In today's world it is assumed that knowledge is at the top and people at the bottom essentially perform
routine activities and need only directions or orders.

Today, organizations have many levels of hierarchies, to centralize control essentially at the tops. As more
knowledgeable and educated workers are inducted in the norm al work environment, more information and
knowledge will be available at the bottom of the organization and the top will be able to understand and
appreciate this vast knowledge base to make decisions necessary to command and control.

As a result the functions at the top will change from the command and control to communication and
coordination. Hierarchies will break and organizations will dorm networks of people to exchange information
through local area electronics networks. The top will have the limited task of motivation, managing and
messaging.

All new organizations of the future, in which information content will be critical and predominant, will use a
management structure more like an orchestra where the conductor essentially gives a sense of direction to
consolidate and coordinate to a large group of musicians.

In an orchestra there is no department of violin or department of drum, there are no hierarchies such as senior
violinists, senior drum players, etc. In a sense, the new executive may have hundreds of people reporting directly
home.

The system would be structured in such way that the future manager conductor would coordinate activities of a
large groups of people without multiple levels and work hierarchies to play the same tune and produce the same
product.

Learning new careers would require a great deal of training and a change in attitudes. Training would be related
not only to the tools and technologies, but also to the methods of management, organizations and the related new
work culture. Simultaneously with this the corporate values in the organization will also have to change.
In the future corporate world, business and professional values will not be the only values because people will
now be a part of the knowledge society and will have broader perspective and larger commitment to community
and society. In the knowledge society education will play an important role.

Today, after setting a degree very little education is required in the normal working environment In the future;
education to acquire more knowledge, through 3-5 years of formal training would be a necessity.

Information technology with its openness, accountability, accessibility and connectivity is forcing corporations to
be self-motivated, self-manage decentralized networks that resemble a group of small enterprises with freedom
and flexibility.

Information technology will indeed produce new standards for the free enterprise system and force government,
business and labour to form new partnerships to enhance flexibility, democratic norms and a competitive market
economy.

This trend will bring world resources at the information terminal for improved costing, pricing, delivery, markets
etc., to increase productivity for the new managers. This trend will also bring the antagonism between the Left
and the Right to an end to integrate and evolve a new economic order.

In the last 40 years, because of the growing hostility between the socialist and capitalist super powers, many
disorders have been created, relating to economy, environment ecology and other human developments.

Now, with information technology, experts from both superpowers are beginning to recognize the benefits of
openness and networking of human talent for cooperation as opposed to confrontation.

It is now being appreciated that networking of knowledge will bring liberal democratic values and conservative
competitive values together as the most striking feature of the future. The new information culture is believed to
be capable of bringing about a creative union of the Left and the Right.

This has been recognized by the technocrats and the leaders of the two superpowers. If networking of knowledge
implies networking of cultures and customs, the economics also have to be networked and integrated. This may
lead to shrinking the world with a larger reach, a common standard for trade and technology for everyone to
benefit front.

The Western economies have already been in tune with free enterprise and information culture. For the socialist
nations, there was a need to change the direction so as to benefit from the future force information.

What had been happening in the Soviet Union and the East European nations in the past few years was in
response to the force of information spreading like wild fire.

It was no longer possible for the socialist system to remain alienated from the information technology related to
creation, preservation and dissemination of ideas. However, to gain economic advantage from information
technology, the political and social norms had to change in order to bring openness accountability and democratic
values with freedom and flexibility