As technology makes it easier for a business to find and collaborate with outside expertise, a huge and competitive market for consultants will arise … Businesses that successfully draw on the resources available across the network will be more efficient, which will challenge others to do the same. Lots of companies will eventually be far smaller because using the information highway will make it easy to find and work with outside resources.
Predictor: Gates, Bill
Prediction, in context:In his 1995 book “The Road Ahead,” Microsoft CEO Bill Gates writes: ”As technology makes it easier for a business to find and collaborate with outside expertise, a huge and competitive market for consultants will arise … Companies will reevaluate such employment issues as how extensive a legal or finance department they should keep, based on the relative benefits of having expertise inside an organization versus outside it. For particularly busy periods a company will be able to get more help easily without adding more employees and the associated office space. Businesses that successfully draw on the resources available across the network will be more efficient, which will challenge others to do the same. Lots of companies will eventually be far smaller because using the information highway will make it easy to find and work with outside resources.”
Biography:Bill Gates, the most influential technology entrepreneur of the late 20th century, was the primary author of the prediction-packed 1995 book “The Road Ahead” and is the founder and CEO of Microsoft Corporation. (Entrepreneur/Business Leader.)
Date of prediction: January 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Economic structures
Subtopic: Employment
Name of publication: The Road Ahead (book)
Title, headline, chapter name: Chapter 7: Implications for Business
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
Page 154
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Guarino, Jennifer Anne