HE world-wide recession has entered into its third year. Though the worldwide phenomena was that the Clearly, companies and consumers are discovering that global networking and other technological innovations are powerful assets if used as competitive weapons in their day-to-day activities. These activities also permeate organisations where increased demands of the efficient collection, dissemination, and processing of information are evident because of various economic factors -global competition and other market forces -and consumer demands for high service and improved quality. These demands are forcing companies to integrate previously isolated "islands of automation" into coherent weapons