Strategic Planning

T he current business environment is increasingly more complex, dynamic, and turbulent in both the macro and micro scales. This is especially evident when we consider key issues such as globalization, politics, technologies, social and economic matters, suppliers, clients, and product and services competition.1–3 This effect is particularly noticeable in the information and communication technology (ICT) sector, where escalation in the number and propensity of changes necessarily generates increased uncertainty and makes predicting market behavior more difficult. Within this new paradigm, we must reconsider the models of competitiveness established to date, especially those that refer to resource and personnel management. Manuel Castells contends that capitalist production has passed from an industrial to an information model.4 He considers information the new material base of technological activity and social organization, which is manifested in his network society model. Furthermore, the European Union (EU) is clearly moving toward a new productive system, a knowledge-based economy, with the objective of becoming the most competitive society in the world by 2010.5 Along these lines, Castells claims,