The implementation of information system strategies
in UK companies - aims and barriers to success
T.D. Wilson, Ph.D.
Head of the Department of Information Studies
University of Sheffield, UK.
Abstract
A survey of the Times 500 companies together with 47 financial services
companies was carried out in 1988 to determine the extent to which the idea
of 'information system strategies' was recognized in these organizations, how
strategies, where they existed, were related to business aims, the elements of
which strategies were composed, and the nature of barriers to design and
implementation.
Introduction
Building on Porter's (1985) definition of strategy as, ' . . . the route to competitive advantage
that will determine . . . performance', we can define an ISS as the analysis of the role that
information systems can play in helping business units or companies to define a route to
competitive strategy.
The literature on information system strategies is extensive: much of it anecdotal in character,
or exhorting managers or chief executives in British industry to make more use of
information technology. The claim is made, repeatedly, that unless Britain can keep up with
Japan, the USA, and the major European competitors in the rate of application of information
technology, economic decline is inevitable. The most persuasive argument of this kind has
been spelled out by Mackintosh (1987). Some writers, however, go beyond exhortation to try
to identify the ways in which information technology may have long-term strategic value for
companies, or to show how information technology can have an impact upon profitability.
The key names in this respect are Michael E. Porter, who devotes a significant part of his
Competitive advantage: creating and sustaining superior performance (1985) to the ways in
which technology in general, and information technology in particular, can have an impact
upon competitive advantage; and Paul Strassman ( 1985), who develops the concept of
management productivity in his Information pay-off: the transformation of work in the
electronics age and who has used the PIMS database of key indicators to advise companies
on appropriate investment in IT.
The work reported here resulted from an interest shared by the author and Arthur Andersen &
Co.: the overall objective of the study was to discover the extent to which major UK
companies had adopted a strategic view of information systems development. In addition to
this main objective there were a number of subsidiary aims. For companies that claimed to
have a strategy we wished to know:
1.How the link to business strategy was maintained.
2.The organizational level at which strategy was initiated.
3.How the effectiveness of a strategy was monitored.
4.What aspects of information systems development featured in existing strategies,
and what were future plans for investment.
5.How successful strategies were deemed to have been, and what barriers to the
establishment and implementation of strategy had been experienced.
6.How far the idea of competitive advantage was incorporated in strategy, and what
particular competitive ends were pursued.
A number of interviews were first carried out in major companies to explore the objectives in
an informal manner. A questionnaire for self-completion was then prepared, with sections
devoted to the above issues, and in two parts - Part A for those companies with a strategy,
and Part B for those without. To enable companies to determine whether or not they had a
strategy, the following definition was provided:
An information systems strategy brings together the business aims of the
company, an understanding of the information needed to support those aims,
and the implementation of computer systems to provide that information. It is
a plan for the development of systems towards some future vision of the role
of information systems in the organization.
In this paper only the results relating to companies with a strategy are reported.
Of the questionnaires returned, 75 per cent were from companies which claimed to have an
information systems strategy as defined above, suggesting that the idea of an information
system strategy has been widely adopted. Some caution is necessary, however: first, there is a
difference between companies in the financial sector and those in the Times 500 group - 86
per cent of the former and only 73 per cent of the latter report having a strategy (Table 1).
This distribution is statistically significant, i.e., in general, financial services companies are
more likely to have adopted information system strategies than are other industrial firms.
Strategy?
Yes
%
No
%
Row total
Times 500
115
73.2
42
26.8
152
Financial
25
86.2
4
13.8
28
Column total
140
—
46 —
186
Column per cent
75.3
—
24.7
—
100.0
Note: The chi-squared test shows that this distribution is statistically significant at the 0.08
level.
Table 1. Possession of a strategy by companies in the two major groups
Furthermore, 6.4 per cent of strategic companies claim that the ISS is a function of individual
departments, which is at odds with the organization-wide focus of the definition given in the
questionnaire.
Finally, the ISS was said to be 'formal, documented part of business strategy' by fewer than
half (47.5 per cent) of those claiming to have a strategy. Further responses suggesting that
ISSs are less well developed than the basic figures suggest are: that 12 per cent say that
competitive advantage does not figure in the strategy, and 22.5 per cent derive information
for management only as a by-product of transaction processing, rather than as a consequence
of more sophisticated analyses of management information needs, suggesting an operational
aim rather than a strategic aim for information systems.
In fact, if a very strict definition of a strategy-holder is adopted, the number of companies that
can be said to have a strategy drops to only 24! The definition adopted in arriving at this
figure is that:
The strategy should be formally documented, should be initiated by the Board,
monitored by planned reviews, and should base information provision on key
indicators, critical success factors, or on a detailed analysis of management
information needs.
These 24 companies would constitute only 13 per cent of those replying to the survey, and
only 17 per cent of those claiming to have a strategy. Six of the 24 are financial services
companies (22 per cent of that group of respondents; and a further seven are found in the top
100 companies.
The formality of the strategic process
Relationship to the business strategy
The first question is Section A was: How is the information systems strategy related to the
company's overall business strategy?, with the five alternatives shown in Table 2.
Alternatives offered
%
companies
The ISS is a formal, documented part of the business strategy
47.5
There is no formal documentation, but the ISS is related to specific strategic
aims
41.8
The ISS is a departmental function, rather than a corporate function
6.4
The ISS is not seen as related to the business strategy
0.0
Other
4.3
Table 2. Where the strategy is developed
Clearly, the formality with which the strategy is related to business aims is variable and
throws some doubt on the extent to which, in many cases, the approach can be regarded as a
'strategy'. In particular, the fact that over 6 per cent regard strategy-setting as a departmental
function, suggests that, in those companies, information system strategies are still not seen as
central to corporate effectiveness.
The main reason for selecting 'Other' was the federal nature of many of the companies, that is,
the firms were either subsidiary companies within a group of companies, or part of a holding
company, or the headquarters of one or other of these two categories. In these circumstances
information systems strategies tended to be a function of the individual business units rather
than of the group or holding company.
The following comment was typical:
Group policy is that responsibility for IT is delegated to each operating subsidiary . . .
[which] is required to prepare an ISS as part of their business strategy on a three-year cycle...
However, some groups had recognized the need for an overall corporate strategy, as the
following response indicates:
As a large diverse corporation, IS strategy has tended to be dealt with at
major grouping levels . . . Acquisitions have . . . carried on, or developed,
independent strategies. A major review is currently in progress to determine
the degree to which a corporate strategy is required.
Table 3 shows the distribution of results over the four industry groups. There are too many
small value cells for significance tests to be used, but it is noticeable that firms in the
financial group are more likely to have a formally-documented strategy than in the other
groups.
Banking/ Energy, oil, Distribution/ Manufacturing, chemicals, Row total
finance
gas, etc. trading, etc.
pharmaceuticals
Formal
document
17
68.0
5
50.0
19
43.2
25
41.0
66
Related - no
document
5
20.0
2
20.0
23
52.3
29
47.5
59
Department
function
2
8.0
1 10.0
–
–
6
9.8
9
Other
1
4.0
2
20.0
2
4.5
1
1.6
6
Column
total
25
17.9
10
7.1
44
31.4
61
43.6
140
100.0
Note: Significance test inappropriate.
Table 3. ISS relation to business strategy by industry category
IT management and the Board
If an ISS is to be properly related to the business strategy, it is important that the Board
should be closely involved. In 22 per cent of cases the person responsible for IT in the
company was a Board member and, of the remaining cases, a further 87 per cent reported to a
Board member.
The relationship between Board membership and possession of a strategy is not statistically
significant, as in 7 out of 42 (17 per cent) 'no strategy' companies the person responsible for
IT was on the Board. Further evidence of Board involvement comes from the question on the
level of the organization at which a strategy had been initiated, which gave the result shown
in Table 4.
Initiated at...
%
Board level
55
Corporate management services
29
Information services department
8
Department level
1
Other
6
Table 4. Where strategy is initiated
The involvement of the Board in the inception of information system strategies is to be
expected, given that company business strategy is associated with information systems.
However, previous surveys have suggested that acceptance of the idea is rather less
widespread than revealed by these results.
In 65 per cent of cases the strategy is monitored through planned, periodic performance
reviews and in 23 per cent by ad hoc reports to the Board. The remainder reported a
combination of planned and ad hoc reviews, or control by various kinds of committees, or
subsidiary, or plant-based review.
One seemingly heartfelt response pointed to difficulties experienced in monitoring IS
strategies:
With very great difficulty, especially in the area of systems that are designed
to improve service and provide competitive edge...
Key features of strategy or IT implementation
The literature on ISSs identifies a number of elements which may be treated in strategies, and
this study sought to discover the importance attached to a variety of these elements.
Companies were asked to identify the importance of each element in their strategies on a
scale 0 to 10, where 10 identified a major element in strategy. When the responses were
ranked (Kendall's W), the order of importance shown in Table 5 resulted.
Rank
Element
1
Development of computer applications for business transactions, such as
production, marketing, selling, etc.
2
Development of management information systems for effective business control
3
Planned introduction and use of computers and telecommunications
4
Creation of an overall systems and standards architecture for technology,
applications and data
5
Development of information systems for business planning
6
Improved productivity in information systems and computing
7
Development of appropriate staff resources
8
Development of internal support sysrems (payroll, personnel, pensions, etc.)
Table 5. Rank order of features of ISS
In the ranking, in relationship to item 3, some companies were at pains to point out that, for
them, this meant the continued development of systems, rather than their introduction, and it
seems likely that this was true for most.
Further information on the elements of strategy was revealed in the interviews. For example,
one systems manager of an insurance company described the main elements of the company's
strategy in the following way:
The central plank is the continuing evolution of a master set of operational
systems for the office. It was the original development of [these] in the late
seventies that first established IT as a strategic weapon for the office. And it is
still seen by the management that those operational systems are the
cornerstone of our IT strategy. Our primary additional objective this time
round has been to replace our existing systems in an evolutionary fashion
with systems which will cope with a much higher volume of business in an
equally efficient manner and yet will allow rapid product introduction,
evolution
of
product,
evolution
of
organizational
structure.
The second major plank ... is concentrating on the competitive edge, strategic
advantage - what we call delivery systems. Much improved ways of delivering
our product, our service, to the point of sale - beyond our own branch
network, into the brokers office, into the building society office...
In another area, retail distribution, another interviewee identified the main planks as:
...We wanted to reduce the paperwork, we wanted to improve the
communications... to produce online communications, to give people the
timeliness of data... Another plank of the strategy, which had associations on
the technical side, was that we agreed that our systems should be loosely
coupled...: to split the operation across as many computers as we chose to do.
But it would still appear transparent to the Company... And so even if one [of
the machines] goes down we can still run all the others...
Barriers to strategy
Mintzberg (1987) suggests that strategy formation is a craft, rather than a science, and the
process of crafting a strategy will involve negotiating various barriers. The barriers suggested
in the literature include a number that affect any innovation, such as the hostile attitudes of
management levels in a company, and the problem of recruiting appropriate staff. Some, such
as the difficulty of measuring benefits, are more specific to IT implementation.
Companies with a strategy were asked to identify the barriers either to setting up or
implementing a strategy and to state whether the barrier had been major or minor. The results
are shown in condensed form in Table 6. In Table 6, the ranking is based on the proportion of
companies citing a barrier as a major impediment. It is interesting, however, to look at the
ranking that emerges when the change in proportions citing a barrier as a problem at set-up
and implementation is used. This can be seen in Table 6, but is also set out in Table 7 for ease
of reference.
Rank
% response
Set-up Impln.
Barrier
Set-up Impln.
1
3
Measuring benefits
30.5
32.6
2
2
Nature of business
27.7
34.8
3
1
Difficulty in recruiting
24.1
36.9
4
6
Political conflicts
23.4
19.9
5
5
Existing IT investment
22.0
24.8
6
4
User-education resources
17.0
29.1
7
11
Doubts about benefits
15.6
8.5
8
9
Telecommunications issues
10.6
11.3
9
7
Middle management attitudes
9.9
13.5
10
8
Senior management attitudes
9.2
9.2
11
10
Technology lagging behind needs
6.4
9.2
Table 6. Rank importance of barriers to strategy
Some of the changes shown in the table might be called logical shifts: for example, one might
expect greater difficulty in recruitment when an organization actually needs to recruit, at the
implementation stage; one might expect the lack of resources for user education to become
more apparent when user education for the new systems needs to take place; and it is not
surprising that technology lag makes itself felt after the initial optimism of the planning stage.
Rank
Barrier
% change
1
Difficulty in recruiting
+12.8
2
User-education resources
+12.1
3*
Nature of business
+7.1
3*
Doubts about benefits
-7.1
5
Middle management attitudes
+3.7
6
Political conflicts
-3.5
7*
Existing IT investment
+2.8
7*
Technology lagging behind needs
+2.8
9
Measuring benefits
+2.1
10
Telecommunications problems
+0.7
11
Senior management attitudes
0.0
* = Ties.
Table 7. Change in significance of barriers from set-up to implementation
Logical explanations for some of the changes are more difficult to find, however: the nature
of the business (degree of diversification, rapidity of growth, etc.) is perceived as a major
barrier initially and by an even greater proportion during implementation - what is the
explanation for this? Perhaps it is that anticipated problems in this area actually materialize.
Also, the attitudes of middle management assume a greater significance at implementation this may be related to the lack of resources for user education and to the perception that
technology lags behind needs, i.e., is failing to deliver anticipated benefits. Perhaps the
smaller increase for senior management attitudes is related to the marked decline in the
significance of political conflicts. The downward shift in political conflict may also be
associated with the decline in doubts about benefits, although the difficulty of measuring
benefits remains a problem.
When we examine the extent to which these factors are perceived to be either major or minor
barriers, the picture shown in Table 8 emerges.
% response
Rank
Set-up Impln Set-up Impln
Barrier
42.5
45.4
10
10
Senior management attitudes
53.9
52.5
6
6
Middle management attitudes
61.7
75.2
3
1
Recruitment
51.8
48.2
7
8*
Doubts about benefits
63.8
63.8
2
4
Measurement of benefits
49.0
49.6
9
7
Existing IT investment
59.5
72.4
4
2
User-education resources
58.2
59.6
5
5
Political conflicts
66.7
67.4
1
3
Nature of the business
49.6
48.2
8
8*
Telecommunications issues
39.7
41.8
11
11
Technology lagging behind needs
Table 8. Significance of barriers as either major or minor
From these various rankings, the difficulties in recruiting appropriate staff, the lack of
resources to engage in user education, the nature of the business, and the difficulties of
measuring benefits, emerge as the key features of IT strategies that are likely to cause
problems for companies.
Further details of barriers and problems surfaced in the interviews. Even companies with a
strong commitment were not immune to blind spots. For example, one interviewee said that:
...while there is this very strong belief in information technology, the top
management have not believed in end-user computing... The main drive... is
coming from DP because we see opportunities for managers, professionals, to
help themselves. But it is not something for which there is a strong demand,
and it is something which top management has treated as, you know, 'Why do
you want to play with that, why don't you get on with your real job?'
The same person highlighted another inhibiting factor:
...another aspect of corporate style - the attitude to cost. The organization will
quite happily invest millions almost at the drop of a hat in large-scale
technology for big operational systems. I can get authority to spend a million
or two on new hardware to improve the system in a ten-minute meeting with
the managing director. And yet the same man will say, 'I might find a PC on
the desk quite useful, but how much does it cost? [and then] 'It's not worth
spending £2500 for a piece of junk on my desk.'
An interesting aspect of the recruitment problem was revealed in a financial services
company which had a tradition of project teams directed by a senior manager from the user
group and staffed mainly by users:
When we started all this there was quite a large army of part-qualified, or
recently qualified, very bright, young actuaries, accountants, and so on, that
we could pull on. An unfortunate effect of the systems we developed was that
we reduced the need for the office to have a lot of those people - you didn't
need lots of actuarial trainees with calculators doing these things any more.
What we didn't see at the time was that we were cutting our own throats.
Now, over the last three or four years, that's been recognized in the office. Not
just for computing reasons, but for all sorts of other reasons, it's starting to
build up its professional input, its graduate trainees, again.
Success of strategies
Companies were asked to indicate how successful their strategies were, and why. The
proportions selecting the different categories are shown in Table 9.
Response
%
Highly successful
14
Reasonably successful
59
Partly successful
24
Not at all successful
0
No response
2
Table 9. Success of strategies
Table 10 shows the distribution of responses by rank position in the Times 500 group:
interestingly (although the numbers are small) companies in the lower half of the rankings
appear to be more satisfied with their strategies than those in the upper half.
Times 500 rank
1-100
101-200
201-300
301-400
401-500
Highly
successful
5
14.7%
1
5.0%
4
16.0%
3
16.7%
4
26.7%
Reasonably
successful
19
55.9%
14
70.0%
15
60.0%
9
50.0%
8
53.3%
Partly
successful
10
29.4%
5
25.0%
6
24.0%
6
33.3%
3
20.0%
Note: significance test inappropriate.
Table 10. Success by Times 500 rank
Some of the companies (46 per cent) did not state why they had chosen a particular category;
however, the comments that were made are very interesting. Curiously, the least interesting
are those made by companies who claimed to have 'Highly successful' strategies. The
comments amount to saying that the company had achieved what was set out to be achieved,
for example: "We have successfully achieved all objectives during the first year of our 3-5
year plan."
Occasionally, reference was made to the achievement of cost-effective benefits: "To date they
have met the objectives set at the outset - normally within budget."
One response was rather more informative:
Rapid development of systems using 4GLs has meant systems can be delivered
within acceptable time scales and before business needs change. Sophisticated
software has meant high level of acceptability of systems by users.
Those who chose to say that the strategy had been only 'Partly successful' generally advanced
reasons for not having done better, with two reasons more frequently quoted than others poor involvement or low acceptance by managers, and having more work than can be coped
with:
Difficulty in gaining full approval for strategy. This makes long-term,
integrated systems development difficult.
Pressure on building short-term applications to cope with immediate business
requirements inhibits progression towards long-term goals...
A wide variety of other reasons was put forward, including lack of human and other
resources, poor education and training, unsuitable technology, resistance to change, and a
volatile marketplace. Among the comments, some are particularly instructive:
While the existence of a separate computer services company within the
Group has given a professional focus to 'data processing' services, the
remoteness from end users has led to a shortfall in identifying their
'informational' needs, which lead managers to a poor opinion of computing
generally.
Problems with staff recruitment with appropriate expertise coupled with the
requirement to develop most applications 'in-house' due to major investment
in minority supplier restricting application package choice.
The most interesting comments were associated with the 'Reasonably successful' response.
They divided into three groups: 'positive' comments advancing reasons for having
accomplished as much as had been achieved; 'negative' comments explaining why more had
not been accomplished; and 'neutral' comments.
The dominant kind of positive comment related to senior management and Board support for
strategies, a factor which has been frequently mentioned in the literature. Typical statements
included:
Enthusiastic backing from, and the direct involvement of the Chief Executive.
The Company's senior managers have a natural inclination towards using IT
and [the company] is moving towards central business planning which is fully
compatible with the thinking behind an ISS.
Major involvement on a regular basis from senior executives down through
other levels of management.
Successful implementation of systems (included in one of the quotes above) is also separately
put forward as a reason for being 'Reasonably successful':
Able to produce required information significantly faster and more efficiently
than two years ago, with beneficial effects for management and staff actually
doing the work.
Future investment in IT
Future investment in IT was probed through two questions: the first sought information on
plans over the next three years; the second, information on plans beyond that time. Table 11
shows the percentage of companies identifying areas of major investment (i.e., a score of 4 or
5) over the next three years, with the items ranked.
Rank
% strategy
1
80.0
2
Investment area
% no strategy
Rank
Business applications
65.0
1
44.9
Use of package programs
56.4
2
3
38.4
Further hardware development
43.6
3
4
35.0
End-user computing
31.6
5
5
33.3
Networking microcomputers
42.1
4
6
27.6
Multi-function workstations
18.4
6
7
26.3
Executive information systems
10.8
8
8
18.2
Development of expert systems
11.4
7
9
18.0
Sales-force microcomputers
6.3
10
10
7.0
Image-processing systems
8.3
9
11
5.4
Voice-related systems
3.1
11
Table 11. Rank order of investment areas
Interestingly, of the top six investment intentions, only one, the introduction of Multifunction Workstations, could be said to be an advanced application; the other five are all
quite familiar areas of system development.
Comments by an interviewee, in the financial services sector, emphasize the industry-specific
character of some of these developments, however:
We think there is a role for fairly simple expert systems technology, on two
grounds: firstly, it enables us to easily prepare systems for the agents to use
that will lead them through procedures and ensure their compliance with the
Financial Services Act; and secondly, it will provide sales tools, from simple
product systems through to quite complex financial analysis, needs analysis,
so that we can disperse relatively complex technical knowledge out to those
points-of-sale and improve the sales performance of all those tied outlets.
A system of this kind was actually under development:
...we currently have a working prototype of the high-level . part of that system
which collects... the 'know your customer' data for compliance, which is,
incidentally, the data you need to later feed the advisory legs.
In an interview with a managing director in the construction industry the question was put:
'Do you see a role for terminals in site offices?':
Yes, I certainly do, but I've seen it for the last 15 years... I'm still convinced
when the day comes that there are terminals, whatever type of terminal that
may be, on site, then we've really got somewhere. And we will never get a
complete system until we do get it on site... The day's got to come when you
can have something small on site. where you can key... the hours for the
payroll, or where a clocking-in system puts it there, where you go round to do
a valuation and you key it in... then you're really getting somewhere... the
materials, the lot.
In this case, however, the enthusiasm for the idea was tempered by the realization that current
technology and particularly current telecommunications, militated against the implementation
of the idea.
Some of these developments, of course, will be industry-specific, e.g., a company without a
sales force is unlikely to find a use for sales-force computers. Worth noting, however, are the
investment areas where major developments have been forecast (image processing, voicerelated systems, and expert systems) which are not yet seen as major investment areas.
Question 10 identified nine areas for potential future strategic development and asked
companies to state whether the area was of little interest, some interest, or major interest, or
was already part of strategy. Table 12 lists the areas by the mean ranking (using Kendall's
W).
Rank
Investment area
1
Improved management use of IT for decision making and planning
2
Service improvement through communication links with customers/clients/agents
3
More effective marketing and selling through the use of IT
4
International data exchange with customers, subsidiaries, or suppliers
5
Creation of new products or services based on the company's information resources
6
Product improvement through CAD, CIM, robotics, or other computer assistance
7
Use of expert systems for management decision making
8
Use of expert systems to provide clients, customers, or suppliers with knowledge of
products or services
9
Management of the computer resources by a third party- 'facilities management'
Table 12. Potential investment areas
Table 13 presents, in abbreviated form, using the ranks assigned in the above table, the
proportions of companies identifying the areas as of major interest, or as already part of the
1SS.
Item rank
% major interest
% part of ISS
1
44.4
38.8
2
24.4
51.1
3
35.4
38.9
4
21.0
31.8
5
22.7
17.4
6
10.4
29.5
7
23.4
6.3
8
18.7
5.8
9
4.6
5.8
Table 13. Investment areas ranked by extent to which they are of major
interest to companies
Competitive advantage in IT strategies
The idea that IT can contribute to the competitive -advantage of a company in the market
place is one that has received widespread publicity over recent years, and a number of case
studies have been collected to show the means whereby IT has been used in this way.6 Of the
techniques shown, historically, the use of IT to reduce costs has been the most common, and
it is interesting to see in these results, that product or service improvement is now seen as the
main competitive advantage to be gained from information systems; at least among those
companies that have adopted a strategic view.
As one interviewee put it:
...back in 1965, when we were one of the first in the industry... we believed
that there were a lot of cost savings to be made... and what we did was
partially successful and partly not. But, as it went on, obviously we learnt
more about it, and I think we then started making better use of it...
The interviewee went on to talk about other benefits for senior management, for example,
having computer-produced appraisal documents for plots of land, or computer-based
financial estimates and balances, and was asked: 'Would you define those benefits as
something like "management productivity"?':
Yes, I would, definitely... And... it's the kind of thing you can't quantify and say
it's saved us people, but I wonder what it benefits you by the fact that you've
got it there?
Companies were asked whether CA was a feature of their IT strategies, and 88 per cent
claimed that it was. There was little difference over the different segments of Times 500
group, but the more than 90 per cent of the top 100 and more than 96 per cent of the financial
group made this claim. The CA strategies used, in rank order of major importance, are shown
in Table 14.
CA strategy
% response*
Use of IT to improve product or service performance...
83.3
Use of IT to reduce costs...
50.0
Use of IT to tie customers...
39.2
New products based on information
26.7
Requiring access to suppliers' databases...
5.0
* = Companies who said that CA was part of their IT strategy.
Table 14. Competitive advantage in IS strategies
Conclusion
Previous studies of the strategic uses of information systems have intimated that few
companies have adopted a strategic view. This study suggests the picture may not be as black
as others have painted. Certainly, the survey reported here has gained response from more
companies than has typically been the case, and a certain degree of confidence can be
expressed in the findings. At the very least it can be said that the idea of information systems
strategies is recognized by a good proportion of the companies in the Times 500 group, and
has really taken hold in the financial services sector.
The interviews, in particular, lead this author to believe that the deliberate process of strategy
formulation may be relatively rare, even among those companies which now claim to have a
strategy. Mintzberg's words on the matter ought to be taken as offering comfort to those who
see strategy as evolving, rather than as being set down as a consequence of deliberate
strategy-formation action:
While it is certainly true that many intended strategies are ill conceived, I
believe that the problem often lies one step beyond, in the distinction we make
between formulation and implementation, the common assumption that
thought must be independent of [and precede] action. Sure, people could be
smarter - but not only by conceiving more clever strateaies. Sometimes they
can be smarter by allowing their strategies to develop gradually, through the
organization's actions and experiences. Smart strategists appreciate that they
cannot always be smart enough to think through everything in advance.
Acknowledgement
I would like to express my gratitude to Arthur Andersen & Co., Management Consultants, for
enabling me to undertake the work upon which this report is based. I would like to thank
especially Willie Jamieson, Partner in the firm, for his helpful response to my initial enquiry
and for his continued support throughout the project.
I would also like to thank the University of Sheffield for granting me Study Leave to
undertake this and other activities during 1988.
References

MacKintosh, I. (1987). Sunrise Europe. Oxford: Blackwell.

Mintzberg, H. (1987). Crafting strategy. Harvard Business Review, (July/August),
66-75.

Porter, M.E. (1985). Competitive advantage: creating and sustaining superior
performance. New York, NY: Free Press.

Strassman, P. (1985). Information payoff: the transformation of work in the
electronics age. New York, NY: Free Press.
This paper was originally published in International Journal of Information Management, 9
(1989) 245-258