By: Neil Macehiter, Research Director, Macehiter Ward-Dutton Published: 16th May 2007 Copyright Macehiter Ward-Dutton © 2007

In this post Andrew McAfee at Harvard Business School has a detailed discussion about the impact of IT. He concludes with the following question:

What’s the correct way to think about IT’s effects going forward: diminished competitive significance because the technology innovations are being absorbed, or sustained significance because IT has moved industries into permanently higher rates of process innovation and replication?

Our research for the book provides strong evidence for the latter and that’s ultimately why we set out to write it in the first place.

Once the IT organisation has got its own house in order and gained the trust of the business, the route to effective IT-business alignment—understand and reflect the business; engage the business; and drive the business—and the enterprise architecture process that supports it is all about harnessing IT capabilities (people, technologies and practices) to support process innovation. That’s why, as we explain, the concept of business processes offers the most appropriate basis for analysing business activities and informing technology, investment and sourcing decisions.

Reader Comments

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17th May 2007: 'Skippy' said:

Haven't we beat this enough? Also, you might want to reference Nick Carr's original paper on this topic. Lastly, there seems to be confusion about technology and IT.

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17th May 2007: 'Neil Macehiter' (Author) said:

From our research for the book it seems pretty clear that the question about the business value of IT is still very relevant. With respect to Nick Carr's paper, it is referenced in Andrew McAfee's article and so I didn't want to replicate that discussion. It is also discussed in our book. You're right that there is confusion about technology and IT: the difference between the two - the information - is the important factor. I think Nick Carr's original article focused primarily on the T. The technology may be a commodity and widely available. It's how organisations exploit that technology to harness and utilise information assets in support of business objectives that does matter.

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