Nevertheless, the reluctance of firms to replace those workers with ICT since the 1990s, because of the high cost of shedding workers, began to weigh on productivity. I have shown the consequences of this empirically in a panel study of sixteen industries from 1981 to 1998. 7 Product markets Turning to the product market, ICT is influencing business organization and business models.
As mass-production developed and economies of scale advanced from the latter half of the 19th century, the cost of getting the right inputs at the right time became more of a concern to firms than the cost of the inputs themselves. Thus, the skills required to organize and optimize the production process and product development became the source of profits.