How the noughties changed business

The first decade of the millennium saw huge changes in the global economy and business processes have evolved in many unexpected ways. PriceWaterhouseCoopers' Kevin Ellis outlines 12 major changes that took place in the decade we now know as the 'noughties'.

1. The rise of the customer-centric organisation
Businesses have been transformed and reassembled themselves around the individual customer. Intelligent use of technology has enabled companies to target products and services at individuals in a way that adapts to the customers’ changing needs and circumstances right the way through their lives. It is something that has happened across the public sector too. We are ‘customers’ as much as ‘citizens’ to the organs of government today. This trend will continue throughout the next decade, as organisations find new ways of turning the data they collect into business opportunities. It will also continue to create yet another wave of professionals, adept at fulfilling these opportunities - like the information architects and search engine optimisers we met over the noughties.