Information and communication technologies (ICT) reveal the organization of companies and industrial sectors in new terms.

They simultaneously affect the materiality of product flows, the layout and organization of production-distribution processes, the allocation and structuring of skills and occupations, and the targeting and management of customers.

Industrial organization is, in fact, structured through different modes of articulation between physical exchanges and informational relations.

That is, the production flow is between the circulation of parts and components of the product on the one hand, and expertise exchanges and supports as well as communication resources on the other.

New forms of organization and market are expressed in various ways. It is concerned both with the evolution of the internal structure of firms and with the transformation of inter-firm relations in industrial sectors and value chains.

The purpose of this article is to characterize these forms of organization of the sectors and their associated business models.

ICT AND VALUE CHAINS

The theorizing of the relationship between ICT and the organization of inter-company relations finds its source either in various studies, particularly in economics or in management and organizational sciences.

On the economics side, it is undoubtedly the contributions of transaction economists who have most explored the impact of ICT on inter-firm relations.

Strictly speaking, there is more controversy than the work of industrial economists. Research therefore particularly highlights the role of ICT in reorganizing relations between industrial partners.

Other authors have been directly concerned with the effects of ICT. In particular, the new partnership strategies opened by ICT were underlined.

It has shown how ICT development largely conforms to classical economic rules and does not necessarily represent a change in the nature of observed developments.

On the other hand, organizational managers and theorists are at the root of more specific reflections that emphasize the concept of value chain.

The resource-based and core-skill-based approach made it possible to emphasize the consistency of processes, the coordination of activities and the quality of management of company resources.

Essentially, it indicates that the subject of exchange, the production function, the list and nature of goods are relatively stable.

It reveals the structure of skills by focusing on alliances, inter-firm partnerships, contract forms, and coordination relationships that assume the economic situation is final.

Strategic analyzes and economics of transaction costs examine the interests of forms of cooperation and contracting with respect to the organization of changes between partners.

Other studies instead take into account the relationships and exchanges between actors participating in the same activity by analyzing them in terms of control and dependence on resources.

If reasoning managers are more interested in terms of sectors and value chain, it is not only because of the significant transformations of the production function that affect its content and organization.

In addition, it makes it possible to take into account the location of economic actors.

Some recent studies in the field of strategy have explored this question by introducing the concept of supply chain or global commodity chain.

Analysis based on the concept of value chains is at the direct intersection of reflections arising from analyzes of the industrial economy and management sectors.

They are interesting because of the obvious contradictions they involve, as they predict strong cooperation and renewed competition between manufacturers and distributors.

But the thinking of economists and managers is largely compartmentalized.

The economics of organizations is characterized, paradoxically, by a relative inattention to work on management problems, especially information processing.

Branches and Industries

Microeconomic approaches to industry have preferred technical criteria, especially based on product homogeneity criteria, to delimit sectors.

Firms that produce the good have an industry through their on-the-job production processes and links between firms. The branch concept allows it to take into account a competitive process related to the substitutability of goods.

Its industrial system is defined as a unique, tangible and stable network of interactive and identifiable components.

He uses the term industry to characterize an intermediate form of organization that promotes up-and-down relationships between the market and firms.

In particular, it distinguishes between intra-company or inter-company coordination modes, depending on whether the activities are similar or complementary.

The reasoning regarding the concept of sector nevertheless appears to be a French specificity and the term sector has no English equivalent.

Since the 1970s, many studies have been carried out on this subject in order to determine the foundation and purpose of industrial policies. They define production chains as sequential stages from a raw material to the consumption of products.

Dr.Yaşam Ayavefe