1. Introduction
The famous article “IT doesn’t Matter” by Nicholas G. Carr created a hot debate on the usage of IT to achieve strategic goals in 2004. It quoted several examples like electricity, rail roads to illustrate his point that IT has slowly developed into a commodity rather than strategic resources. Though Carr recognized that there is benefit in having the first mover advantage in implementing a new IT system in the industry, he insisted that this is short lived. His argument is that eventually other competitors will replicate the system and implement it in their organizations, as IT systems are readily off the racks nowadays. This will level the playing field again.
He also pointed out that best practices can be incorporated into the IT systems to assist companies using them to reap even more benefits from implementing the systems. Work processes and flows will then be redesigned to work around the systems to attain efficiency. In this manner, best practices elsewhere can be easily replicated and implemented. Thus, all these lead to the fast diminishing of the strategic importance of IT.
There are several articles and reports that attempted to counter Carr’s arguments that IT no longer matters.
One of them is from Rob Garrison titled “IT Still Matters”. In this article, Robson mentioned that though the spending on massive IT projects is reducing in recent years, companies are still spending on IT projects. He observed that many CIOs are not ready to give up on innovation or their strategic roles yet. These CIOs are still putting their faith on technology-driven innovation to create long lasting competitive advantage. He has cited several examples in his article on how companies from various industries like internet, manu ...