Webbing customers
Sometimes it can be hard to remember exactly what our lives were like in times where now long-forgotten technology once prevailed.
Sometimes it can be hard to remember exactly what our lives were like in times where now long-forgotten technology once prevailed.
"Ten years ago, all businesses depended on fax machines. Now, they are rarely used," says Professor Paul Cheung, programme director of the Master of Science (MSc) in E-commerce and Internet Computing degree at the University of Hong Kong (HKU).
Our lives have been transformed by our ability to access, organise and use digital information, he adds.
"The internet allows almost instant person-to-person contact, with negligible delay, through a medium at, effectively, zero cost," Cheung says. With this type of contact now possible for several billion people, he adds, "this radically changes how we do things and our behaviour".
Cheung sees this revolution accelerating even faster in the future. "In the same way that you can go into your kitchen, turn on your tap and water comes out, in the future information will be as easily available," he says.
Dr Theodore Clark, associate professor and academic director of the MSc in Information Systems Management programme at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), sees increasing challenges, as well as benefits, for businesses in the digital future.
