Nowadays single companies are confronted with great difficulties. The progress of the
information technology and the distribution of the Internet as well as the changing demand of
customers especially for no-standardised products force them to react immediately.In order to
solve these problems the companies should work on the following aspects:How can they reach the
state of flexibility to meet the changing demand? How can they compete within a market with
increasing innovations of products and decreasing product life-cycl? How can they acquire the
necessary capital technology and know-how to compete? How is it possible to optimise their
corporate structures and achieve synergetic effects?
