IT Doesn't Matter
 | HBR OnPoint Enhanced EditionHarvard Business Review, 2003, Digital |
|---|
As information technology has grown in power and ubiquity, companies have come to view it as evermore critical to their success; their heavy spending on hardware and software clearly reflects that assumption. Chief executives routinely talk about information technology's strategic value, about how they can use IT to gain a competitive edge. But scarcity, not ubiquity, makes a business resource truly strategic — and allows companies to use it for a sustained competitive advantage. You gain an edge over rivals only by doing something that they can't. IT is the latest in a series of broadly adopted technologies — think of the railroad or the electric generator — that have reshaped industry over the past two centuries. For a brief time, these technologies created powerful opportunities for forward-looking companies. But as their availability increased and their costs decreased, they became commodity inputs. From a strategic standpoint, they no longer mattered. That's exactly what's happening to IT, and the implications are profound. In this article, HBR's Editor-at-Large Nicholas Carr suggests that IT management should, frankly, become boring. It should focus on reducing risks, not increasing opportunities. For example, companies need to pay more attention to ensuring network and data security. Even more important, they need to manage IT costs more aggressively. IT may not help you gain a strategic advantage, but it could easily put you at a cost disadvantage.
Title: IT Doesn't Matter (HBR OnPoint Enhanced Edition)
Sales Rank: 289005 in Books
Author: Nicholas G. Carr
Publisher: Harvard Business Review, 2003-05-01, Digital, 28 pages
- I think that this is obscurantism, plain and simple
- "OBSCURANTISM is a word that's no longer used these days. In the forties, it was a favorite of literary and social critics. The dictionary defined it as "a deprecation of or positive opposition to enlightenment or the spread of knowledge, especially a policy (as in art or science) of deliberately making obscure or withholding knowledge from the general public," also a "style (as in literature and art) characterized by haziness and lack of sharp… More reviews
- Very Thought Provoking
- This is a very good read - I think he has missed the point with his conclusions, but what he says is thought provoking none the less. Readers should follow the article up with a read of the book "IT Doesn't Matter - Business Processes Do".… More reviews
- Comparing IT with previous broadly adopted technologies
- Nicholas G. Carr is Harvard Business Review's editor-at-large and writes for several leading business magazines/newspapers. This article was published in the HBR's May 2003-issue.
As information technology's power and presence have expanded, companies have come to view it as a resource even more critical to their success. Since 1965, the capital expenditures of American companies on IT has risen from 5% to almost 50%… More reviews
- "Focus on risks, not opportunities"
- Nicholas Carr's article is at the centre of a firestorm. At a time when the IT industry seems to be in a bottomless freefall, the suggestion that companies should spend even less on IT investments is unwelcome to many ears.
"IT Doesn't Matter" certainly isn't the first paper to point out that the IT industry has been maturing. Previous analysts' reports have compared IT to such rustbelt industries as automotive manufacture,… More reviews
- IT Doesn't Matter-Business Processes Do: A Critical Analysis of Nicholas Carr's I.T. Article in the Harvard Business Review
- The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google
- Does IT Matter? Information Technology and the Corrosion of Competitive Advantage
- Six IT Decisions Your IT People Shouldn't Make (HBR OnPoint Enhanced Edition)
- Strategy and the Internet (HBR OnPoint Enhanced Edition)
