It is no longer just chief information officers within companies who need to focus on the internet, but other managers too, it has been suggested. According to research conducted by Gartner, the IT industry will show long-term growth for the next five years and firms and consumers are increasingly moving onto the web. The organisation suggested that the industry will show a compound annual growth rate of four per cent over this period. It can be difficult for bosses to know where to focus their attention and so making use of business consultants and management development services may be necessary in some cases. Speaking at the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo, vice president at the organisation Stephen Prentice stated: "We are increasingly living, playing and working in a digital world where people will have no alternatives but to become 'more digital' with the assets they have available. "In 2012, the internet will be 75 times larger than it was in 2002, and if Facebook was a country, it would be the third largest in the world (after China and India)." Meanwhile, Gartner vice president Ken McGee added that technology has become "everyone's property and everyone's issue". The expert also suggested that social media is altering the way in which business is conducted and claimed it is vital that companies understand the "power of communities" on the web. Indeed, knowing how to interact with them and understanding their expectations and aspirations are to become "essential business skills" this century, Mr McGee added. Business leaders who lack confidence in this field may opt to make use of business consultants and management development services so that they do not get left behind. Gartner suggested that "vast sums of money and enormous amounts of time" will be spent in coming years to discover how best to capitalise on these new trends.
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