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ZDNet News, February, 2008
February 17th, 2008 -- As someone who has been accused of publicity seeking through grand pronouncements I can understand the motivation behind Nicholas Carr’s 2003 article in Harvard Business Review: “IT Doesn’t Matter”. His main thesis is:
For a brief period, as they are being built into the infrastructure of commerce, these “infrastructural technologies,” as I call them, open opportunities for forward-looking companies to gain strong competitive advantages. But as their availability increases and their cost decreases - as they become ubiquitous - they become commodity inputs. From a strategic standpoint, they become invisible; they no longer matter.
Admittedly when Carr published this article I was employed by an IT Research firm whose very existence depended on the premise that IT matters. Most people in the IT world have a visceral reaction to Carr’s challenge. My own cathexis is reinforced daily as I see example after example of IT being used as a strategic differentiator that leverages one company above another. It is far too early to lump IT in with other historical improvements in technology such as railroads and telephones as Carr does.
Examples? Let’s talk about six: Amazon S3, UPS, Marketwiki, Interactivebrokers, Kmart, and TierConnect.
If IT was really as ubiquitous as Mr. Carr thinks you would not be able to quickly identify major holes in technology deployment all around us. Every manufacturer for instance would have automated inventory control. The founders of TierConnect were aghast when they realized that every manufacturing plant in the world was using hand written tagging systems to label defective components for return. Over 30% of handwritten tags had ineligible or wrong part number, quantity or problem. And of course there was no reporting or alerting so a new quality problem may not be communicated back to the supplier for as much as 30-60 days. With a simple deployment of TierConnect’s solution auto assembly plants are saving millions a year. Household goods manufacturers, farm and construction equipment, and electronics manufacturers have yet to deploy TierConnect’s solution. They will as they realize once again that IT matters to manufacturers.
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Does IT matter?
By Richard StiennonFebruary 17th, 2008 -- As someone who has been accused of publicity seeking through grand pronouncements I can understand the motivation behind Nicholas Carr’s 2003 article in Harvard Business Review: “IT Doesn’t Matter”. His main thesis is:
For a brief period, as they are being built into the infrastructure of commerce, these “infrastructural technologies,” as I call them, open opportunities for forward-looking companies to gain strong competitive advantages. But as their availability increases and their cost decreases - as they become ubiquitous - they become commodity inputs. From a strategic standpoint, they become invisible; they no longer matter.
Admittedly when Carr published this article I was employed by an IT Research firm whose very existence depended on the premise that IT matters. Most people in the IT world have a visceral reaction to Carr’s challenge. My own cathexis is reinforced daily as I see example after example of IT being used as a strategic differentiator that leverages one company above another. It is far too early to lump IT in with other historical improvements in technology such as railroads and telephones as Carr does.
Examples? Let’s talk about six: Amazon S3, UPS, Marketwiki, Interactivebrokers, Kmart, and TierConnect.
If IT was really as ubiquitous as Mr. Carr thinks you would not be able to quickly identify major holes in technology deployment all around us. Every manufacturer for instance would have automated inventory control. The founders of TierConnect were aghast when they realized that every manufacturing plant in the world was using hand written tagging systems to label defective components for return. Over 30% of handwritten tags had ineligible or wrong part number, quantity or problem. And of course there was no reporting or alerting so a new quality problem may not be communicated back to the supplier for as much as 30-60 days. With a simple deployment of TierConnect’s solution auto assembly plants are saving millions a year. Household goods manufacturers, farm and construction equipment, and electronics manufacturers have yet to deploy TierConnect’s solution. They will as they realize once again that IT matters to manufacturers.
Read Full Article »