In Atomic the authors' revolutionary theory is put to the test. Looking across all sectors of business, including retail banking, financial services, telecommunications, IT and consultancy, carbon-based corporations (oil and gas companies), and consumer products companies, Camrass and Farncombe discover some real eye-openers, including how truly more efficient these industries become by a change in corporate structure.
The implications for individuals are equally profound and far-reaching. It might take a decade, but it will happen, and nothing will be the same again. Welcome to the Atomic Corporation.
"Farncombe and Camrass put forward a radical, powerful and at times unsettling thesis. If companies are to produce sustained growth and increased returns for shareholders in the world that the authors describe, they will increasingly rely on digital business strategies. For larger companies it means combining the leverage that their greater size affords them, with the degree of flexibility common to successful smaller firms. The companies that do this best will become devastatingly competitive."John Leggate, Group Vice President, Digital Business, BP
"In this far-seeing, logical and insightful book, Camrass and Farncombe have provided an invaluable analysis of technology-driven trends which promises to revolutionize the workplace." Andy Eggleston, Vice President, E-Business Europe, Ford Motor Company
"Not content with a concise, hysteria-free analysis of the technology-inspired forces shaping our lives, the authors predict corporate future in some detail. Conviction futurism. Bravo! The idea that digital connectivity is the force causing organizations to break apart, and that Megacorp can no longer rely on gravity, is appealing if pardoxical. In this world only full digitzed organizations (large or small) will be eligible to playing the Atomic Business Olympics. The CIO is set to become Corporate Gold Medallist or unemployed." Peter Sole, CEO, The Research Board Inc.
Picking up where Ernst and Young's last blockbuster Blur leaves off, this book creates a radical manifesto for the future of organisations. In the Atomic Corporation Roger Camrass and Martin Farncombe examine the radical changes that are going to sweep across the global economy in the next decade.
The authors argue that the major asset of any corporation is the many relationships it has developed over its trading life. The trend must be away from tangible assets and into 'intangibles' based on relational capital. In a connected world a corporation is measured by the sum of its relationships with customers, suppliers, partners, shareholders and employees, and not its traditional asset values.
So what does this mean for organizations? Camrass and Farncombe demonstrate that corporations will atomize into core components based around key relationships with all non-core operations devolved to external networks. Instead of being focused on financial assets, the primary unit of corporate value will be the individual, both as customer and employee. This radical viewpoint has far-reaching consequences for organizational shape, market dynamics and capital structure as well as for our careers.