The new business model will require a corresponding on-demand operating environment—built on open standards to allow quick, easy and cost-effective innovation and reconfiguration. In the on-demand era, processes will have to be integrated from one end to the other—so a customer order,for example, creates a ripple effect in which every part of the organization responds appropriately to the impact of the order: logistics, manufacturing and distribution. The level of integration needed to make this happen is a big challenge but a huge opportunity. In this era, you’ll need an e-business partner you can trust, e-business tools that work in new ways and e-business people who understand your business as well as the technology it runs on. A partner, in other words, like IBM.