...Need Answer Sheet of this Question paper, contact aravind.banakar@gmail.com www.mbacasestudyanswers.com ARAVIND – 09901366442 – 09902787224 INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY 1. What are the characteristics of a technologically enabled organization? 2. How does an Organization acquire & dissimilar knowledge? 3. Why do you suppose inquiry – only applications were developed instead of fully on lines system? 4. What kind of technology is least flexible? Most flexible? 5. How does strategic planning differ between a firm that offers services & one that manufacturers a product? Is there a difference in the impact of technology on strategy in any two types of firms? 6. What kind of business activities do you think are most amenable to common systems in different countries? business activities that are most amenable to common systems in different countries 7. Distinguish between computer hardware & software which most concerns a manager? 8. What kind of software does a server for a local area network need to have? 9. What is OLAP? How does it contribute to the organization? 10. Why are standards so important in communications? 11. What industries are most likely able to take advantage EDI? 12. Are there applications where it does not matter if multiple databases are simultaneously updated 13. Most organizations today have computers and software, all of which are supposed to work on a network, from different Vendors? What are the potential...
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...Does IT Matter? An essay presented to the Department of Information Systems University of Cape Town in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the course on Information Systems Honours (INF 414W) by ( March 200x Declaration 1. I know that plagiarism is wrong. Plagiarism is to use another’s work and pretend that it is one’s own. 2. I have used the APA Convention for citation and referencing. Each contribution to, and quotation in, this essay from the works of other people has been attributed, and has been cited and referenced. 3. This essay is my own work. 4. I have not allowed, and will not allow, anyone to copy my work with the intention of passing it off as his or her own work Signature …………………….. Date ….../….../…...… Full name of student: A Table of contents 1. Introduction………………………………………………………………………1 2. Resources: what makes them strategic?.....................................................1 1. Characteristics of Strategic Resources………………………..…………2 3. Strategic value of Information Technology………………………….………..2 4. The evolution of the IT function in business………………………………...4 5. Using IT to gain Sustainable Competitive advantage………...……………7 6. Conclusion……………………………………………………………………….8 7. Bibliography………….………………………………………………………….9 ...
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.../ K00121194 Why it does not matter Why it does not matter Discuss the following statement using arguments for and against the point of view stated: Technology does not create a competitive advantage. Instead, it is the appropriate management of technology that creates a competitive advantage. Why IT does not matter The whole world of e-commerce and using IT within businesses started by inventing the personal computer and connecting the world and business with theirs customers via internet. The spending of the resources on IT by businesses was increasing more and more towards the end of the century. In the last decade it was nearly 50% of the capital expenditures. Carr (2003) says that any business has equal access to the computer technology because it is affordable and as the technology evolves and innovates, the price goes down more rapidly. That means the IT does not gives the advantage to the organization, but it’s the way organization manages the IT, how it aligns the IT with the organizations business goals that gives it the competitive edge against the competition. IT becomes just a commodity and cost of doing business. What makes it truly strategic is tis scarcity. Another area that has to be looked at when adopting IT technologies is if to use proprietary or infrastructural (open standard) technology. The proprietary technology is protecting companies against the competition. It does not allow to use of its technologies by other companies. This...
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...VIEW: THE “IT DOESN’T MATTER” DEBATE Larry DeJarnett The Lamar Group larry.dejarnett@thelamargroup.com Robert Laskey Revelation 360 bob@revelation360.com H. Edgar Trainor Paramount Pictures ed.trainor@paramount.com EDITOR’S FOREWORD This article differs from all the articles CAIS published previously in that it is a debate on the nature of IT written by practitioners from three different points of view. It deals with IT Doesn’t Matter, a polemic written by Nicholas Carr, then editor of the Harvard Business Review in which he argued that the days when IT offered strategic advantage are long since gone and that managers therefore should undertake a different approach to IT. The paper, obviously, became notorious in the IS community. On December 3, 2003, the Southern California Chapter of the Society for Information Management, at its regular meeting invited three of its members with long experience as chief information officers to debate the issue. The title of the meeting was: "I.T. Doesn't Matter or Does It? How to Improve the Value and Perception of I.T.” The three debaters were assigned a position to argue: favorable to Carr (Laskey), neutral (DeJarnett), and unfavorable to Carr (Trainor). Edited versions of their remarks are presented below. Keywords: value of IT, perception of IT, role of IT, Nicholas Carr, I.T. Doesn’t Matter, IT Does Matter, contrarian point-of-view, strategic advantage, vanishing advantage of I.T., ubiquity, management of technology I. MAKING SENSE OF...
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...Article: IT DOESN’T MATTER BY NICHOLAS CARR This article is written by Nicholas Carr and it has become so popular because of its important topic about information technology in business today. Information technology has become a very important component in the success, efficiency and effectiveness of business. Many businesses today are investing heavily in information technology like e-commerce and internet advertising despite the financial crisis at hand. Most companies view IT as a resource for the expansion of their business. Chief Executives look at IT as a tool to gain competitive advantage against their competitors. However, Nicholas’s argument is of a different view. He says competitive advantage can only be gained by a company if it does something or has something that rivals can’t do or have. IT has become common knowledge to most companies and is available and affordable to all. IT therefore, is no longer a source of competitive advantage but a factor of production. He says, as IT availability increases and its cost decreases, it becomes a commodity input. Competitive advantage can be found through propriety technologies which are technologies owned by a single company. In such a case, a company might innovate or discover a certain process that rivals cannot duplicate so the company is able to reap higher profits than its competitors. Also infrastructure technology can be an advantage to a company where the technology is restricted so becomes scarce and when a company...
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...“IT Doesn’t Matter” Management Information Systems The Idea that “IT Doesn’t Matter” as proposed by Nicholas Carr in the Harvard Business Review article that was published in 2003 raises just as many questions as it does answers to this very question as well as it has stirred up quite a bit of controversy over since its publication. What Carr is saying unlike the title of the paper he does not say there is no need for IT. The idea was to draw up controversy. Carr’s argument is to have a strategic advantage within IT. Something no one else has is extremely important. IT has become a huge cost for many organizations but other things have gone down in cost. Our Infrastructural technology of today in terms of transportation of goods it helps deflate prices. It is essential for competition to have IT but inconsequential for strategy for many organizations. What Carr is saying essentially is yes IT is an important to tool to help organizations achieve their goals daily however it is not the core of the business. The core is the strategy that each company possesses that makes it stand out from the rest and ultimately make that organization successful. The title of the original HBR article was misleading. Mr. Carr is not arguing that information technology doesn’t matter. Of course it does. Among other things, IT improves productivity by reducing communications, search, and trans- action costs, and by automating all sorts of tasks previously done by humans. But Mr. Carr asserts that...
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...Does IT Matter? I do not think that with Nicholas Carr’s article ‘IT Doesn’t Matter” that Carr necessarily meant that Information Technology does not matter, but more that it has become a “commodity” as stated in the article. Meaning that businesses are now so dependent on IT, and it is now so common in the business world; therefore, IT now only offers little competitive advantage between companies. Companies view Information Technology as such and important success factor that businesses world wide, even during this economic downfall, continue to spend over $2 trillion a year on Information Technology, where in 1965 less than 5 percent of a company’s capital expenditures went to IT. Carr’s suggestion is that since the return on companies investment in information technology is so low, that business owners should contemplate the amount that they pay for Information Technology. In my opinion, I think that Information Technology does matter, and companies should use IT to their advantage, and that companies can profit off of using IT. To me the most important assets that IT provides are the ease and convenience of the Microsoft Windows applications as well as the Internet for research. For example companies using Excel to keep organized records of customers, associates, employees, and etc. People using the IT to do research on companies and products that they may have an interest in purchasing. However, I am still firm believer that we should not forget how to use...
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...Technology and Jobs Abstract Have you ever asked yourself whether or not technology may possibly be taking away multiple jobs from us humans? Why is this so? Jobs are becoming increasingly obsolete due to the fact that now, the job can be done by a computer. Now, when you go to the grocery store, there are self-checkout registers in which you, the consumer, do the work while the cashier’s job becomes less aggravating. Also, in the medical field, there are many operations and procedures that can now be calculated with certain technology. Moreover, in the engineering world, jobs are becoming deleted because of computers. Go back a few decades in time and try to imagine calculating something without a calculator. At an alarming rate, technology is decreasing our jobs at a very alarming rate. At this pace, in the future, all work will eventually be carried out by robots and computers. Keywords: technology, jobs, computer, calculate, work Technology and Jobs “The U.S. economy hit an important milestone last week: Gross domestic product, the sum of all goods and services produced in the country, returned to pre-recession levels. But the gains were made with millions fewer workers. Part of the reason is technology, as computers and machines continue to replace humans.” You must ask yourself whether or not technology may possibly be taking away multiple jobs from us humans. Why is this so? Jobs are becoming increasingly obsolete due to the fact that now, the job can be done...
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...Nicholas Carr AKASH GOUD GUNDLAPALLI Wilmington University Nicholas Carr is a technology writer whose acclaimed works have led him to be a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2011 and also have been bestsellers. His writings examine the fusion of both culture and technology genres. Some of his works include The Glass Cage: How Our Computers Are Changing us (2011), The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google (2008), Does IT Matter? (2004). Many of which most have been translated into more than 25 languages. Does IT Matter is considered as a book that changes the thoughts of a individual about technology and its strategies. It details how innovative, monetary, and aggressive powers are joining to change the information technology and the innovation it plays in business, with significant ramifications for information technology administration and speculation and additionally system and association. IT is seen as the most recent in a progression of extensively embraced advancements that have reshaped industry in the course of recent hundreds of years from the flow to the broadcast and the phone to the electric generator and the interior ignition motor. For a brief period, as they were being incorporated with the framework of business, every one of these advancements opened open doors for forward-looking organizations to increase genuine points of interest. Be that as it may, their accessibility expanded and their cost diminished as they got to be pervasive. From...
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...Information Systems MN5121 Competing with IS Yasaman Soltan-Zadeh y.soltan-zadeh@rhul.ac.uk Office: MX 120 Competing with IS • Does IT Matter? • IS and Competitive Advantage • The New Competitive Paradigm Does IT Matter? • Can IT provide a strategic advantage? • Is it sustainable? • Carr, Nicholas (2003), “IT doesn’t matter”, Harvard Business Review, May 2003, pp. 41-49. – “As information technology’s power and ubiquity have grown, its strategic importance has diminished. The way you approach IT investment and management will need to change dramatically” (Carr, 2003) IT Doesn’t Matter! • Information Technology: – Proprietary Technology vs. Infrastructural Technology • The Commoditization of IT – Transport mechanism – more valuable shared rather than isolated – Interconnectivity and interoperability – Standardisation of technology and homogenisation of its functionality – Highly replicable – Rapid price deflation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PO2dCaaSDk8 IT Doesn’t Matter! • From Offence to Defence – Spend less – Follow, don’t lead – Focus on vulnerabilities, not opportunities Does IT matter? • Inherently strategic because of indirect effects • Creates possibilities and options that did not exist before • May become ubiquitous! The insight to harness the potential is not distributed evenly. Does IT matter? Three broad lessons • Extracting value from IT requires innovations in business practices. • IT’s economic impacts comes from incremental...
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...Does IT matter or not? In a world where IT was perfectly ubiquitous Carr would be justified in his argument that IT does not matter. However, Carr’s argument is incomplete. Carr neglects to look at how the various companies manage and use their IT resources. In a world where IT was perfectly ubiquitous, IT would not matter, the management of that IT resource would however matter a great deal to determine its strategic advantages. It should also be noted that the development of IT and the creation of new IT have not reached its end and will not do so in any short period of time. IT, in its nature, allows for continual development as each new development opens new avenues of Research and Development. Each new development generally takes the form of proprietary technology, for a short while at least, allowing for strategic advantages. Carr’s belief that these new proprietary developments cannot sustain a strategic advantage for any company is true, but again it should be noted that the IT industry is in a constant state of change. It is the companies, like Microsoft, Hewlett Packard and Sun Microsystems with their ability to constantly make progress in the development of IT, which have the strategic advantage. The general sentiment amongst IT professionals is that IT matters a great deal. This statement is liable to a great deal of bias as to state otherwise is equal to asking IT professionals to concede that they, their jobs and livelihood, do not matter. In fact, however...
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...at innovation as category, and suggests an outline for a genealogical history. Case Study of “The quest for innovation” Cultures of Technology Culture matters—this has been one of the most often-heard messages. It matters in its attempts to explain why economic opportunities have been seized in one country or region, and why economic failures have occurred in another. It matters not only for economic development, but also for political development. It promotes change—or impedes it. It matters when corporations with different organizational cultures merge or fail to do so. With organizations increasingly moving in global environment, they are well-advised to broaden their cultural range and to question the assumption that their concepts are universally valid. In the field of organizational learning, for instance, a shift has occurred toward a concept of organizational culture as the unit in which learning occurs. The culture of an organization is said to be pivotal to understanding how a particular organization adapts to ongoing changes. It shapes perceptions of past and current events. The emphasis is on shared conceptions of what needs to be learned, how it is to be learned, and why. Culture is understood here in its most encompassing sense: a shared scheme of interpretation that enables the organization to cope with change. Culture matters—and indeed it permeates an enormously wide range of social activities. It binds together communities or sets them apart. It makes communities...
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...Reaction Paper on the article “IT doesn’t matter” by Nick Carr A set of related arguments that Carr makes is that scarcity, uniqueness, and proprietary technologies bring about strategic advantage and lock-in the vendor. He also stated that as information technology’s power and ubiquity has grown, its strategic importance has diminished. Finally, he argued that information technology (IT) can no longer be used to gain a strategic competitive advantage. The second set of arguments that Carr makes is that information technology has become a non-proprietary commodity, invisible, and has therefore become an infrastructure technology. Because of this he argues that the window for gaining advantage from an infrastructural technology is open only briefly with lower cost being the only advantage information technology vendors have to offer yet information technology vendors are rushing to be commodity suppliers. The third set of arguments that Carr makes is that commoditization of information technologies cause information technology businesses to crumble. Due to this fact, he argues that information technology vendors must therefore learn to provide services of the commodity that help customers overcome their vulnerabilities. The fourth set of arguments that Carr makes is that information technology vendor should: follow not lead, become tight-fisted with spending, and manage cost and risk meticulously. By doing this, Carr agues this will cause them to be successful. To support...
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...BIM 5013 Management Information Systems Case Study - IT Doesn’t Matter by Nicholas Carr Background This article “IT Doesn’t Matter” written by the Harvard Business Review’s editor-at-large, Nicholas G. Carr in May 2003 highlighted and that the power and ubiquity of information technology has grown inevitably so much so that the technology by itself will unable to deliver the competitive advantage. The article did not anywhere affirmed IT is not important, but rather argues that the strategic value of IT is diminishing as it gets harder and harder to utilize IT as an edge over competitors. In other words, it is scarcity that allows companies to use it for sustained competitive advantage. Carr viewed that when IT is truly an infrastructural technology, it is therefore prone to commoditization – a process which is already evident and reflected by its high replicability and sharp reduction in IT prices. He further added that the more IT becomes pervasive and companies view it more critical to their success, the more heaving spending on IT itself underscores risk than generating competitive advantages. Why Carr’s Claims are not Wrong Carr said that it is the ‘scarcity’ that makes a business resource truly strategic and allows companies to use it for a sustained competitive advantage. According to him, it is only by doing something that your rivals can't that one gain an edge. Core functions of IT such as automation - data storage, data processing, and data transport - have now...
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...a horror film relies on the technology used in filmmaking, with the quality of the sound effects being the aspect that matters the most. Furthermore, advancement in technology will sometimes guarantee an improvement on both the sound and visual effects and the overall quality of a horror film as well. I. Technology and horror film’s history A. Brief background about horror films 1. First years of horror 2. Horror’s increasing popularity B. Introduction to the technologies used in making a film in general 1. Differences between CGI and practical effects & the use of 3D 2. Sound effects as a plot device 3. Introduction to study II. Students’ opinions regarding the technological aspects of a horror film. A. Opinions of students to the visual effects present in a horror film 1 How visuals improved the “horror factor” of a horror film according to the students 2. Comparison between male and female student’s responses 3. Researcher’s analysis and interpretation B. Opinions of students to the sound effects utilized in horror film 1. How sounds improved the “horror factor” of a horror film according to the students 2. Comparison between male and female student’s responses 3. Researcher’s analysis and interpretation C. Comparison between the visuals and the sound effects & the relation of advancement of technology to quality filmmaking 1....
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