I’m stuck on a Management question and need an explanation.

Q. Read the article IT Doesn’t Matter (Links to an external site.). Provide an argument counter to the article and give an example of how IT does matter and can deliver business value. Be specific. Include a link for your examples.

Response any 2 paper from below. (A-C)

A. In Nicholas Carr’s article “IT Doesn’t Matter”, the author introduces his opinion that IT has been standardized and commoditized to point that it has no value (Carr, 2003). He further concludes that since IT no longer provides a competitive advantage to businesses, companies should stop spending recklessly on investing in more information technology products and services. While I can agree with some of the points made by Carr, I disagree companies should not invest in information technology products and services as means for driving greater efficiency or market share advancement for their organization.

For many organizations the investment of information technology has led to a more strategic view throughout the various departments. As an example, IT investments such as marketing tools, BI analytics, data clouds, and data marts functions, a majority of the manual efforts which previously slowed down productivity and innovation for a company are able to be redirected toward revenue yielding initiatives. Instead of IT being viewed as large company expense, IT becomes a business partner. This is achieved as IT is more focused on creating tangible business values rather than just cables, clouds, and equipment. For those organizations that have learned to extract the value and worth of its information technology functions, they become true differentiators amongst their competition (Hassell, 2012).

References

Carr, N. G. (2003, May ). IT Doesn’t Matter. Retrieved from HBR.org: https://hbr.org/2003/05/it-doesnt-matter

Hassell, J. (2012, July 25). 4 Reasons Why IT Matters More Than Ever. Retrieved from CIO.com: https://www.cio.com/article/2393834/4-reasons-why-…

B. In the article “IT Does’nt Matter the author Nicholas G, Carr states that ”But the opportunities for gaining IT-based advantages are already dwindling” (Carr, 2003). According to the author’s opinion gaining IT-based advantage is not realistic. But the power of the IT infrastructural technology is not going to fade any time soon.

Since the start of the information technology revolution, it has succeeded in changing the way companies run and do their business, the products they produce and even how the products are produced.

The value that is created by a company is gauged by the amount of money that the buyers are willing to exchange for that product or service. Thus, a business is said to be viable and profitable if the value that is created by the business is more than the cost that is involved in running the business.

So for a business to get a competitive advantage over its rivals, it has to either perform these activities at a cheaper cost or perform them in such a way that the business will stand out to the extent that customers will not mind paying a premium price in order to get it (“How to Gain Competitive Advantage “).

The author also states that “Big hardware and software suppliers have become very good at parceling out new features and capabilities in ways that force companies into buying new computers, applications, and networking equipment much more frequently than they need to” (Carr, 2003).Cloud computing also solves IT infrastructure problems so that companies do not have to buy new software every time . Cloud infrastructure refers to the hardware and software components — such as servers, storage, a network and virtualization software — that are needed to support the computing requirements of a cloud computing model. In cloud computing, these virtualized resources are hosted by a service provider or IT department and are delivered to users over a network or the internet. These resources include virtual machines and components, such as servers, memory, network switches, firewalls, load balancers and storage. Rather than owning their own computing infrastructure or data centers, companies can rent access to anything from applications to storage from a cloud service provider. One benefit of using cloud computing services is that firms can avoid the upfront cost and complexity of owning and maintaining their own IT infrastructure, and instead simply pay for what they use, when they use it.(Rouse).

References

Carr, N. G. (2003, May). IT Doesn’t Matter. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2003/05/it-doesnt-matter (Links to an external site.).

How to Gain Competitive Advantage in Business Using Information Technology. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.profitableventure.com/competitive-advantage-information-technology/.

Rouse, M. (n.d.). What is cloud infrastructure?Retrieved from https://searchcloudcomputing.techtarget.com/definition/cloud-infrastructure.

C. In the article “IT Doesn’t matter”, the author has mentioned that opportunities for gaining IT-based advantages are gradually diminishing which I completely disagree. I think Information technology is changing the way companies operate. It is affecting the entire process by which companies run their business. Information technology in fact provides so many opportunities to the companies which helps them to keep growing their business. Some of its major advantage are:

1. Data Centrality

Access to data via a computer network information system is central “one-stop” location to find and access pertinent computer data. Most of the large-scale businesses and organizations use some sort of central database to manage user information, manage advertisement lists, store product information and keep track of orders. Examples of central database solutions are MySQL, PostgreSQL or Microsoft SQL database solutions, coupled with custom software which provides user interfaces.

1. Information Coverage

Central information systems provide organizations with the advantages of having large amounts of data, covering many different fields, all accessible via a central source. Information coverage is a huge advantage for any organization, because having vast amounts of useful data from every different department streamlines access and increases productivity.

1. Access Efficiency

Efficiency of access is a crucial advantage to networked information systems over more traditional information management systems, such as paper cataloging and filing. Computer-based information systems catalog and file documents in a set logical way, making data access very efficient and fast. Data can be manually categorized, and filters created to automatically file documents that match certain patterns. This increases employee productivity time by allowing workers to focus more on the task at hand rather than filing paperwork.

4. Extensible

Computer-based information systems are completely extensible and customizable to an organization’s needs. Upon installation, customized computer information systems use configuration files that are tailor-made to an organization’s needs to file and categorize data. Computer software engineers frequently design custom database interfaces and information storage/recovery systems for enterprise clients. As a company grows, modifications and additions to this filing configuration allow easy extensible. Computer information systems are not limited in scale or possibility. They are uniquely designed for maximum organizational benefit for each customer.

References

Smith, M., Vitez, O., Bortolus, D., Wall, M., & Orrill, J. (n.d.). Advantages of Computer-Based Information Systems. Retrieved from https://www.techwalla.com/articles/advantages-of-computer-based-information-systems (Links to an external site.).

Hassell, J. (2012, July 25). 4 Reasons Why IT Matters More Than Ever. Retrieved from https://www.cio.com/article/2393834/4-reasons-why-it-matters-more-than-ever.html.