IMPACTS OF TECHNOLOGY ON THE DEVELOPMENT, PRODUCTION, AND MARKETING OF NURSERY CROPS
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Technology has often served as a driving force underlying structural shifts in worldwide economies (e.g. Gutenberg's press, Evans' steam engine, and Kilby's integrated circuit). Technology has also impacted the green industry significantly, enhancing the development, production, and marketing of nursery crops (e.g. tissue culture, irrigation and fertilization technologies, automation and climate control systems, and biotechnology/genetic engineering). In the last decade, however, information technology has had perhaps the most marked impact on real performance gains for wholesale and retail nursery businesses. The adoption of information technology (IT) has led to unprecedented changes in business practices and subsequent performance gains throughout many sectors of the economy. Manufacturing plants (nurseries) and service firms (landscapers and garden centers) are becoming increasingly automated, while workers are given more flexible job assignments and stronger incentive pay, leading to improved performance. Supplier and customer relationships are becoming more closely integrated. Computer systems now coordinate various aspects of production and distribution, allowing firms to reduce inventory dramatically. Practices such as Efficient Consumer Response (ECR) and mass customization facilitate relationships with key customers. Firm-level boundaries are also shifting as companies outsource non-core or inefficient activities and move toward flexible, collaborative relationships such as joint ventures and strategic alliances with suppliers, customers, and even firms previously considered rivals. The result is an economy and green industry that is unusually dynamic, and entrepreneurial - with high rates of business formation and business failure - reflective of the inherent risks associated with innovation. In these conditions equity values of firms will continue to fluctuate, and the economy (and green industry) as a whole will likely continue to experience the rise and fall of business cycles through creative destruction and hyper-competition.
