IT Does Matter (At Least When It Is Properly Managed)

Mark B. Schmidt, David Vance
2004 Americas Conference on Information Systems  
The works of (Ackoff, 1967) , (Dearden, 1972) , and more recently (Carr, 2003) argue that IT is becoming a commodity. From their perspective, IT is not so much a source of competitive advantage, but more of a mundane requirement of the environment similar to electrical service and other utilities. Carr presents several compelling arguments to support his commodity view of IT. We feel that such a view fails to consider the dynamic and innovative nature of the IT industry. To the contrary, we
more » ... e that if the commodity view of information technology is correct, then the organization and management of those resources become ever more important. Assuming that roughly the same technology is readily available to all competitors of similar stature, the matter of competitive advantage will be determined by innovative, effective, and efficient use of IT. Several prominent authors including, (Keen, 1993) , (Feeny and Willcocks, 1998) , Henderson, 1998), and (Luftman, Papp, and Brier, 1999) have proposed rigorous theoretically derived models that can be employed in order to achieve success. We analyze each and conclude that each model addresses only a portion of the problem. Some factors we label as "competencies" and others as "bridges". IT competency is self-explanatory. "Bridges" are techniques which link technology to organizational strategy or mission. Using the key components of those models, and based upon the concepts of alignment and maturity detailed by Luftman, a new synthesized model for achieving IT superiority is developed and presented. The factors identified in the model are to be employed by the management function to focus generic IT on the organization's mission and vision in order to achieve success.
dblp:conf/amcis/SchmidtV04 fatcat:fbulwuyqgfdqrodgmoybjlnfyi