CHANGE FOR CHANGE-AGENTS

The use of technology today is survival issue most companies can’t
handle alone.
The quality of advice they get will help or hinder their business growth.
Only few short years ago, managers and consultants looked at technology as tool with which to pursue strategies.
Those roles have reversed – technology is now driving strategy.
So the question is, how prepared are consultants to handle this fast changing business challenge.
As Mark Story outlines in our cover story, “Reinventing Consultants”, this is world where the change-agents themselves are going through change.
At time when clients depend on consultants more than ever, consultants themselves are jockeying for position in this high stakes industry.
While the outcomes are unclear, Story paints picture of greater links between global consultants and IT firms.
Technology has also given workers freedom to work where and when they wish. recent survey reported 50 percent increase in telecommuting in this country.
Despite the flexibility of where people work these days, some things are immutable – you can’t beat face to face contact and the power of jumping on plane and just being there.
In our feature ?Guilt Trips’ Louise Callan shows how Kiwi firms are being more family friendly to parent travellers.
One of the big changes has come in the area of women travellers. They’re now 50 percent of travellers in the US, up from being only one percent in 1970.
While every family manages business travel differently, we were taken with the tale of the Ullrich family. Rather than being separated on his frequent overseas travel, Gilbert Ullrich took his family away with him until the eldest son, Ernest went to school. Ernest had the distinction of being Air New Zealand Koro Club’s youngest member.