It has becoming increasingly apparent that business, as we know it, is deep in the middle of a dramatic transformation. Key sections of the business landscape rest precariously between obsolescence and crisis on one hand and the prospects of extraordinary transformation and growth on the other.

It is a golden opportunity for those who can grab it.

The fuel, of course, for this extraordinary developing nexus is the rapid acceleration of new technology development.

The signs are everywhere.

The music industry is a good example. Music traditionally used to be discovered, developed and promoted by studios and others, and distributed through physical retail outlets. In the last few years with the advent of internet properties music related websites, Apple's itunes and reasonably priced web hosting options, the industry has begun to change. Budding artists and others have found online exposure in a variety of ways, including some that may perhaps have been surprising and unexpected. They have also found different ways to directly reach out to their fans through the internet. Retail physical stores have ceded some of the distribution channel to online spots like Apple's itunes.

In the process the nature of music albums (the product) itself has changed. For example, play lists now easily allow consumers to customize their selections to reflect their individual tastes instead of having to buy pre-bundled music packages, parts of which might be irrelevant to the consumer. Technology has not only forced businesses to evolve but it has had a transformative effect on the product itself.

Newspapers are another product that faces the prospect of change. Websites like craigslist have siphoned off a lot of the classifieds revenue from newspapers. Music and newspapers are not the only industries being transformed. For example, the travel industry too, has been in the process of fundamental change. Airline and hotel reservation websites like orbitz and travelocity have fundamentally challenged old line travel agents and brokers requiring them to adjust and evolve to deal with changes in technology.

While technology is altering vast areas of the business world, those that remain oblivious to the changes around them may place the future of their businesses in peril. At the same time, there are unusual and enormous opportunities being uncovered every day, for those with drive, energy and creative minds. It truly is a pivot point in the lives of many businesses and the people that build them.

During the industrial age it took decades to organize and fully monetize the huge structures that people like Carnegie, Rockefeller and Ford undertook to build their immense fortunes. Today in startlingly short period of less than ten years individuals like Larry Page and Brin (the founders of Google) have and managed to transform a graduate school idea into a dominate multi-billion dollar worldwide business while emerging as extremely wealthy people in the process.

Nor do the founders of Google seem to be unique. Glancing through the various published lists of the richest people in the world regularly seems to reveal a large number of individuals who have built their fortunes on the explosion of new technologies of the information age.

Few times in human history, have the opportunities for wealth generation seemed so abundant as they are today.

The next few decades should be very interesting to see how business and individuals are transformed by the advent of ecommerce and the internet and the new technologies that seem to sprouting up everyday.
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By: Fuad Kamal

Fuad Kamal is the author of the book "Ecommerce Well." Check out these resources for ecommerce and ebusiness , Small businesses can understand the fundamental shifts and trends happening in the ecommerce economy. Get a quick primer on business and the internet (Part I) which is available at the time of writing this article, for a limited time, at ecommerce-well.com.

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