The purpose of this project is to investigate the phenomenon that we call 'the co-evolution of business and IT', believing that business and technology have now become an inseparable eco-system whose development can only be understood holistically, through case examples.

Within this programme, we will research the business changes by large organizations over the last several years. What are the observed changes, what is driving them, and what is the role, if any, played by technology? Finally, what are the implications for the current management change agenda?

We are looking for patterns of change and causality that will be of general interest to executive management. We expect the research to reveal differences between sectors.

By 'business change', we mean, for instance:

• Changes in the competitive landscape (for example, the rise of China).
• Shifts in the pattern of revenue and profits: across product and service lines, across customer segments, and so on.
• Areas of business that are growing and shrinking; acquisitions, mergers and partnerships.
• Changes in organization, location of P&L; greater use of shared services.
• Changes in response to 'globalization'.
• Changes in how the product or service is sold, in the face-off to the customer.
• Changes in how work is performed.
• Changes in how people work, style of management, and so on.
• Changes in cost structure, more use of variable cost approaches, more reliance on external suppliers and partners.
• More concern with regulation and compliance.

By 'change drivers', we include:

• Factors that are driving the important observed changes, or are synergistic with them.
• In particular, the role of IT, ‘technology’, or the Internet, in addition perhaps to other factors.
• The role of technology in facilitating or enabling changes driven primarily by other forces.
• Factors, including technology, that may be inhibiting more rapid change.

By 'management change agenda', we mean management’s near and mid-term priorities for change and development. Against the background of recent changes, what further changes do executives foresee in the future? How are they reacting? What is keeping them up at night?

Hypotheses – we seek to test specific hypotheses, derived from other research and interviews, regarding the importance of various drivers of change, such as services available on public infrastructure, or advanced Internet capabilities, and so on.

Interviews – we intend to interview senior business and IT executives in large organizations regarding the above questions. We plan to interview over 25 firms in a range of industries in the US and Europe.

No preparation for the interview is required; we are interested in executives' 'front of mind' reactions. In addition to unstructured dialogue, we will seek also to test key hypotheses as noted above.

This project will provide detailed examples of how business has changed in the last five years, how it is changing now, and how companies believe it will change in the future.

Based on our theoretical co-evolution work and in-depth interviews with some 25 large enterprises, this report will define and prioritize the broad range of forces that are changing business, and the role and relative importance of information technology within these changes.