Information Technology Revealed

The service industry is a vital component to any country’s economy. The research gathered by various studies conducted on this topic can only conclude that its impact on the global economy is pretty substantial as well. But today we are seeing shift to “service economies” which then turn into “information economies” meaning the sum of all things in the economy which dedicate to the production of goods and services. Whether it is through primary sectors where you sell information and services or secondary sectors where you are engaged in activities, which might be part of a manufacturing company but are primarily information related that can and will often be separated from the way of conducting business, the shift is now becoming ever so present. By looking at all information type of activities, what you will find in the United States today is that over the last thirty years more than sixty percent of the American private sector is being dominated by “information intensive” primary and secondary sectors. This has turned a large part of the U.S. economy into an information related economy. So is this a global phenomenon? The answer is likely but not to the same extent to the shift of services. When talking about developed economies, as manufacturing shrinks in terms of physical activities in the economy shrinking, the information sectors begin to take a dominant role. Take Korea for example, by comparing their economic trends to the United States, Korea has too found that within the last decade their economy has gone from a manufacturing economy to an information dominated economy. The data for other developed countries has not yet been gathered but is being intensely pursued. It has become apparent that the lack of productivity and services has paradoxically made manufacturing shrink. High productivity means that you need less to make the same amount or more, but as a result even though that sector might remain quite large it will tend to shrink in economic terms. A good example of this in the U.S. is the agriculture industry, which in California in particular is huge, but relative to the rest of the economy it only accounts for three percent. What is interestingly noticeable about these economic trends is that post mid to late 1990s a great deal of research is showing that service productivity is increasing across the board but very intensively in the service sectors which are dominated by information. The signs are clearly leading economists to believe that we are seeing a repeat of early twentieth century industrialization only this time as it happens in the information services sector. This is related to the obvious productivity that we can see. This shift starts at the lowest levels of technology with things like hardware and software which have become standardized and is now converging. It is through the rapid rate of technological progression that information technology is taking this role. This is the leading factor in how we process, move, transport, and deliver our information. Whether you want to admit it or not, information technology is changing the global economy and is already affecting us all.