It and Research
Strategists have viewed IT as a potential technological
ressource that helps organizations to do things
better.
Focus on how IT brings value to the company.
Until the 1980s
Focus on it-strategies (IT investment and
implementation) and It-planning (It-infrastructure).
The strategic grid model was introduced,
which is a tool in assessing whether and
how IT is strategically important to an
organization. IT can have four roles in an
organization.
- If IT in use is percieved as having high
strategic importance and if the systems
currently being developed are perceived to
be important, the importance of IT to the
organization can be termed strategic.
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If in contrast, curerent development projects
are not perceived as being important, the
role of IT can be termed ”Factory”.
If current systems are not perceived as
strategic but the ones in the development
pipeline are, IT can be viewed as a means to
provide a business ”turnaround”.
For organizations in which IT has low
importance today and no potential
technologies can be used to alter the
business, IT can be seen as a support.
Porters five forces and IT
You can use Porters five forces to describe
how IT creates value, strategically.
- Erecting barriers to entry
- Creating high switching costs
- Altering the balance of power in relation to
suppliers
- Changing the basis of competition and
- Creting new products.
Remenber that IT is a potential source of
competitive advantage.
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The recognition that IT does not
automatically generate value dominated
much of the research during the 1990s.
Now companies can use the WEB for
sales, marketing, procurement and other
operations, which have given the
companies newoptimism about IT.
 Lets look at e-commerce and how ecommerce can generete value.
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In the e-commerce model we are looking
at four variables:
Efficiency (highlights the advantage of ebusiness in reducing transaction costs)
Costs are reduced and more options are
available in selecting transaction partners
Novelty (new transaction structures, new
transactional content, new
participants….)
Market systems – customers,
suppliers and competitors
This chapter focus on CRM and SCM
systems.
CRM interact om the marked side of the
business model where you find the
customers and the competiters.
SCM interact on the factor market the
origin of suppliers and production input.
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Lock-In ( loyalty programs, difficult to
switch supplyers, dominent design
Amazon ect…)
Complementarities (the value lies in
reduced distribution cost and getting the
customer after entering the net to pik up
the products in the shop and hopefully
buy more)
Customer Relationship Management
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CRM systems are designed and used to
improve the understanding of the customers
and the market and, in the long term,
improve a firm’s market position and
profitability.
CRM systems include software and
technology for collecting and maintaining
data and provide tools to analyse and report
data about customers and competitors.
Customers only have to make one call and
they will get the right serviceperson.
Supply Chain Management
The idea of SCM systems is to support all
activities related to procurement of
production input, storing inventory,
distributing finished goods and manageing
the supply chain.
 With SCM systems you can track and
trace all your material over geographical
and organizational boundaries.
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At last the activities that are most
affected by SCM systems are
procurement, inbound logistics and
outbound logistics.