IT Doesn T Matter Summary

Any business or company that uses Information Technology (IT) for its operation and is leveraging it for gaining competitive advantage also needs to think about other aspects of the technology. Technical advancement and innovations alone are not sufficient to make any business attractive. IT definitely plays a huge role in the highly competitive business world now than before because of the advancement in the area and various ways it can influence the rise or fall of the business.

Over the past few years technology has caused significant changes in the way enterprises conduct business.

I agree with Carr’s assessment on the commoditization of IT to some degree. For instance, it makes no sense for an organization to spend money in customizing a product when a similar product can be bought at a relatively good price. Organizations no longer write their application, they simple buy one that is available in the market (e,g. Microsoft Office).

The “IT Doesn’t Matter” article by Nicholas Carr, states an unrealistic view of the importance of IT in today corporate world. Carr tries to explain that due to the vast amount of advances in the technology field, IT has been rendered mundane. He states that IT has become as common place as a telephone or a typewriter before the beginning of the PC age. The article attempts to explains that due to the ability of most people to obtain computer systems that have capabilities that normal users will never need or use makes high end computers unable to provide the advantage that bigger companies once held over smaller ones.

These types of investments are where I would disagree most with Carr’s viewpoint regarding the commoditization of IT in business. The pure reason for such an IT investment is to gain a competitive advantage over its competitors. This can be accomplished in a number of ways starting with the overall infrastructure makeup of the IT, all the way to the capabilities and skills of the IT users. The IT itself can be highly complex and customized for a specialized field, making the barrier to entry for competitors quite high. Conversely, the organization can essentially wed its consumers to the organization by offering a variety of useful services to which they can leverage to make the switching costs to another competitor(s) extremely high. Moreover, having a highly knowledgeable and skilled IT workforce can also increase competitive advantage for the organization by finding new ways to leverage their IT against their competitors which is extremely hard to replicate. One example of this type of system was discussed in the case regarding Cardinal Health. Cardinal Health’s expert knowledge and leveraged use of data warehousing, integrated with SAP R/3, to successfully implement an advanced business intelligence platform created a noticeable competitive advantage within their industry. Going further, it also set precedent for what other competing firms would have to strive for. They did so well, I would

First of all, businesses are being over ran by technology. When a business places an order for equipment or supplies, technology come into play. When supplies, equipment or even looking at the budget that has been spent or can be spent, the one tool that is used every time is some sort of technology. Either it be a phone or a computer, technology is being used. If you look back a hundred years

EDITOR’S FOREWORD This article differs from all the articles CAIS published previously in that it is a debate on the nature of IT written by practitioners from three different points of view. It deals with IT Doesn’t Matter, a polemic written by Nicholas Carr, then editor of the Harvard Business Review in which he argued that the days when IT offered strategic advantage are long since gone and that managers

The possibility of gaining a competitive advantage is one of the biggest roles associated with information systems. A competitive advantage is defined as anything that gives a firm a lead over its rivals. As business processes become major differentiators for organizations in many industries, organizations are increasingly using analytics to “wring every last drop” of value from those processes (Davenport, 2006). Another benefit of Information systems is their ability to improve your productivity. Smartphones have

Is sustainable competitive advantage possible, and how can technology be used as its catalyst? This is the question that has vexed managers and business leaders for decades. According to Michael Porter, the answer lies in how technology is used. In this Case Study Report, Team 3 discusses how Mrs. Fields, Inc. leveraged technology for strategic positioning. Mrs. Fields, Inc. did not create the sweet snack industry, but it was the company’s innovative use of technology that helped the company sustain a competitive advantage over other companies vying for those same impulse snack dollars.

Later studies, in the early 1990s, have documented the effect of IT on a diverse regular of measures, (Love et al., 2013), improving performance investing in IT (Stone et al., 2007) such as operating cost, return on assets, firm size, productivity and equity value. Some researchers have also debated that IT can lead to better customer service and product quality. Although the trade literature has increasingly viewed the IT as an enabler of growth, these literatures certificates that the main effect of a superior IT organisation on firm growth is more efficient by controlling the complexity-related cost that increases as the firm grows higher. (Mitra 2005). And high focus on identifying the cooperation relation between information systems and product development, also emphasizing of the abroad organizational and questioning the organization procedures. (Nambisan, 2003).

The transition from old technologies to a new one (the computer renders many a technology obsolete) must not involve too much "creative destruction". The costs of getting rid of old hardware, software, of altering management techniques or adopting new ones, of shedding redundant manpower, of searching for new employees to replace the unqualified or unqualifiable, of installing new hardware, software and of training new people in all levels of the corporation are enormous. They must never exceed the added benefits of the newly introduced technology in the long run. Hence the crux of the debate. Is IT more expensive to introduce, run and maintain than the technologies that it so confidently aims to replace? Will new technologies be spun off the core IT in a pace sufficient to compensate for the disappearance of old ones? As the technology mature, will it overcome its childhood maladies (lack of operational reliability, bad design, non-specificity, immaturity of the first

From the above advantages of the use of the internet, then to is evident that it will be the next big thing that brings about competition. Companies should invest in technology so that they can benefit from the advantages that accrue from the use of technology. With a rapidly growing technological environment, it is advisable for companies to invest more in technology and that will be their biggest source of competitive advantage (Due, 56).

There are several websites blogs that do not agree while others do. John Stuckey, the Director of University Computing at Washington and Lee University, Lexington, agrees with Carr’s comments, while VA Hal R., professor of business, economics, and information management at the University of California, Berkeley says, “In my view, companies cannot afford to ignore information technology, or relegate it to the back burner. Commoditizing it does not necessarily mean innovation slows. If anything, it could accelerate as more and more innovators experiment and tinker with those cheap, ubiquitous information technology commodities”; obviously he does not agree with Carr. The point is that there are many blogs with comments in the Internet that side with Carr and others that do not and the two authors mentioned above are for illustration purposes only.. The third caveat is that Carr wrote his article back in 2003 before the full development of cloud computing, social media, and the smart phone; although, at one point, he quotes as if out of hindsight, “And as for IT-spurred industry transformations, most of the ones that are going to happen have likely already happened or are in the process of happening”, and “ While no one can say precisely when the build-out of an infrastructural technology has concluded, there are many signs that the IT build-out is much closer to its end than its beginning.” From his expertise in the field, it

It is possible for competitors to acquire technology, limiting it as a source of competitive advantage. Technology should increase the flow of consistent information and aid in decision-making. Boh and Yelling (2007) propose leveraging technology distributed in different business units.

Oliveira and Martins (2011:110) stated that IT is universally regarded as an essential tool in enhancing the competitiveness of the economy of a country. It is commonly accepted today that IT has significant effects on the productivity of firms. Oliveira and Martins (2011:10) further explained that it is crucial to understand the determinants of IT adoption and the theoretical models that are raised when addressing IT adoption. In their study, Oliveira and Martins (2011:110) revealed that they reviewed two prominent models: