Professor Kumar Bhattacharyya, founder and head of Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG), and Rob Meakin, a personnel director at Marconi, have developed a partnership to train engineers and managers to become e-literate. The New Knowledge Partnership will immerse a team of 40 Marconi managers in what Professor Bhattacharyya calls electronic engineering management or E2. {{U}}(9) {{/U}}.

Professor Bhattacharyya believes that e-commerce is changing the business environment to a huge extent. {{U}}(10) {{/U}}and, in some cases, are actually resisting change. He says that "As long as enough industry leaders realize its potential benefits, e-business will make possible a second productivity revolution in Britain. This could take the economy close to eliminating the still-substantial competitiveness gap with its main rivals. Over the last five years in the US there has been a 30% improvement in manufacturing-sector productivity because of information technology. In Britain we can achieve more than that and successful e-business will be worth billions to the UK economy."

Already Britain makes more use of computer-aided design and manufacture (CAD/CAM) and management information-technology systems than other European countries, and has a government that actively promotes e-business. But, observes Professor Bhattacharyya, {{U}}(11) {{/U}}. "The thing about electronic engineering management is that you can keep your legacy systems; you just need to link those systems with an information engine. At the touch of a button it will allow project managers to see the status of a project, identify problems precisely and make virtually immediate decisions based on information that will be much more complete than in the past."

The E2 program is the result of an alliance by the Warwick Manufacturing Group with America's leading e-commerce study center, Carnegie Mellon. {{U}}(12) {{/U}}, where the group has half its business. In Britain, Professor Bhattacharyya has linked up with Sun Microsystems, Oracle and Parametric Technology, to set up a multi-million pound E2 design and manufacturing center at the university{{U}} (13) {{/U}}.

Professor Bhattacharyya believes that e-commerce is changing business to such an extent that WMG is likely to be renamed Warwick Electronic Manufacturing Group. But, he warns "{{U}} (14) {{/U}}. Although the net allows British industry to overtake their European peers, it also offers Asian countries the chance to leapfrog the West. For the first time it is not the privilege of the western world because this technology is universal."
A. the latter will be responsible for training many of the Marconi managers in America
B. the move to globalize because of e-commerce is racing ahead
C. which will be used for training and research
D. Britain has never used technology as a growth driver
E. lout most people don't understand this new technology
F. a wide range of engineering and non-engineering companies has expressed interest in these exciting programs
G. many chief executives do not understand the power of the new technologies
H. which is very popular in Britain