Nicholas G. Carr initiated a discussion about the strategic importance of IT spending of companies in his Article "IT Doesn 't Matter" published in Harward business review , 2003. He also advises to reduce the spending on IT infrastructure by arguing the fact that IT become commodity rather than a strategic advantage. Diminishing strategic advantage of the IT as explained by Nicholas Carr is not a broad view of the topic and Author has limited the scope of IT with mostly hardware part and not discussed the various advantages a firm can gain with use of information technology in a whole. Author suggests that business corporations should spend less on the IT infrastructure by arguing that IT is no more a strategic advantage and is similar to other commodity which is assessable to each and every one at market place. Author advices organizations to spend less on the IT capital, to wait and learn from the mistake of competitors and also evaluate the risks associated with the implementation of IT infrastructure. Author has provided the details of it spending and financial outcome of the industry. Here we need to understand that financial out come from an IT investment cannot be expected immediately or in the same financial year. First of all capital goods are very different from the information good. Business benefitted from the Information technology not only based on the how much they spent on the IT rater than how their IT operations are aligned with their
Factors Increasing the Value of IT Investments Weill and Broadbent studied firms that "Consistently achieve more business value for their information technology investment." This study noted that these organizations were excellent or above average in five characteristics: Commitment to the strategic and effective application of IT. This commitment was wide known within each organization.
With the competitive nature of the information technology sector, IVK chose to spend more on IT each year to provide and maintain systems to customers. Even with this increase in spending, IVK still had a breach in security. Furthermore, this shows that great expenditure has not always resulted in the most successful company. Additionally, Carr suggests that IT vendors should not drive companies spending habits, a point that is echoed by John Seely Brown, Former Chief Scientist at Xerox.
According to me (Srinivas), the key issues discussed in the paper are: The chapter started as the challenges of IS/IT investments. The generic benefits of IT were explained with case studies. Net Benefits of the IT were shown. The paper also showed the developing economy and the need for a new appraisal method. This method was explained in depth in this paper.
McKeen, James D; Smith, Heather (2012). IT strategy: Issues and practices (2nd ed.). Boston: Prentice Hall. Kindle Edition.
IT by itself does not provide any value, however, the alignment of IT to strategic, operational, and cultural objectives provides business value. Thus, the CIO must ensure that any new investment in IT is for the sake of business objectives and not for “IT for ITs sake”. Ensuring business alignment against IT project delivery is critical, must be undertaken for any investment and is the key component of IT value.
This portfolio focus on what I have learned during the whole IT Strategy and Control paper, a critical reflection of this paper would be provided. This reflection includes the key points, support reference and the demonstration of my own understanding about the paper itself and all of my personal understandings are based on the learning outcome of this paper. In the first part of this portfolio, I would discuss all the key IT Operations Management framework which have been introduced in the paper, the analysis of the processes based on my own understanding would be given. In the second part, analyze processes required for aligning IT infrastructure and operations with the business goals of an organization would be talked about, and I would focus a business organization which has been mentioned in the caselets as a sample. In the third part, some critical evaluate operational IT organizations and their processes against the studied models would be listed and analyzed. In the last part, the recommendations and analysis of my own would be given against those organizations (caselets) which have some problems and current issues arising from the implementation of the IT framework.
This case analysis discusses the findings in the article ‘Avoiding the Alignment Trap’, where even though most companies are aware that IT must be aligned with business strategy in terms of aligning IT expenses with revenue growth, over 11% of companies that align IT with business strategy spend more than 13% on average on IT expenses with a resulting of less than 14% average in revenue growth. The objective of this case analysis is to recommend a governance arrangement that will lead most companies that are currently have less effective IT alignment with business alignment to IT-enabled growth where the cost of IT more than compensates with the revenue growth of the company. The recommendation is to adopt a Duopoly
In today’s technology driven world, the role of IT in organizations is of upmost importance. Likewise, the role of Chief Information Officer (CIO) has grown from only a service provider to an executive level position. CIOs normally report directly to the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and their managerial expertise effects the entire organization (Chun, 2009). This essay will evaluate how CIOs can ensure that IT in their organization will support value creation and strategic advantage over the next five years. To achieve this, a critical action will be formulated from each category of the taxonomy each organization should follow. This taxonomy includes people, planning, implementation, managing technology,
Is it smart for companies to invest heavily in information technology (IT)? Numerous studies indicate that excessive IT spending will usually reduce company profits and slow productivity. According to an article in the MIT Sloan Management Review, “Avoiding the Alignment Trap in Information Technology,” IT can become a huge bottleneck to growth in companies if they focus on the wrong remedies for their IT problems (Shpilberg, Berez, Puryear, & Shah, 2007). The article first focuses on Charles Schwab and its IT struggles during the early 2000’s. Then, it presents a study on 504 companies, and IT’s effect on their revenue growth. Lastly, it covers the steps to ensure success in IT’s effectiveness.
The recent years have seen dramatic growth in IT development within organizations. There have been attempts to control IT with a range of different models during the past decade yet none has emerged as a clear winner. Now that the emphasis is on return on investment and optimizing resource utilization, IT Governance is top of the agenda . This paper introduces IT Governance, framework for IT governance, financial models for IT governance and explains how good IT Governance can deliver benefits to an organization. The roles and responsibilities of the CIO, differences between the CIO and the CTO are also explained in this paper.
Also, the gap of strategic needs and IT capabilities is not just a technical issue, but also involves business personnel. For instance, with IT governance, there may be a lack in the senior managers’ methods to IT investment or with the line managers’ involvement in IT decisions. There could even be a failure for top management to train lower level employees on the evolving IT processes. There is much unknown about the IT environment for most organizations, and therefore, the lack of knowledge results in not able to maintain their competitive edge. Therefore, when making a decision about IT, top management and IT personnel need to consider several things. First, does the architecture and underlying infrastructure
As mentioned in the introduction to put this paper in the right perspective, can be said that the author talks about the basic principles of investment and how it cannot be considered the thumb rule for investments in the IT sector. The author in this paper shows us how to deploy financial techniques to quantify the value of IT-investments.
Information Technology (IT) budgeting has become a constant struggle for companies, both big and small. The speed at which technology becomes obsolete, management’s expectations for quick deployment of new technology, and a supplier’s change of their operating model to focus on “as-a-service” (Feldman, 2015) recurring revenue, greatly affect how IT departments approach their budget these days. Other factors such as; lack of company vision or one’s inability to see how their IT department fits into the corporation’s goals and expectations are all huge pitfalls for the IT manager. The inability for IT and finance divisions to
Indian information technology (IT) industry has played a key role in putting India on the global map. The sector
Through this paper we have traced the path of evolution of IT from its nascent stages, globally as well as from the Indian perspective. We have tried to take into account the tremendous growth of the IT sector in India and single out the advantages faced by the Indian IT sector. We have also looked into the performance of the Indian IT industry and its