IT Doesnt Matter by Carr and Investing in IT That Makes a Competitive Difference by McAfee and Brynjolfsson - Article Example

The paper "IT Doesn’t Matter by Carr and Investing in IT That Makes a Competitive Difference by McAfee and Brynjolfsson" is a delightful example of an article on business. In ‘IT Doesn’t Matter’ Nicholas Carr (2003) has raised the question of the reduction of the strategic importance of information technology within the wider goals and objectives of businesses. The article claims that IT has lost relevance with regard to its strategic value within a business. With the commodification of information technology, easy accessibility to IT resources and the development of generic software for various operations, the businesses can no longer use it as a competitive advantage. Hence, increasing expenditure in the IT infrastructure must be reassessed. The rapid advancement in technology significantly enhances the prospect of existing technology becoming a burden rather than an asset. Hence, it would be prudent to use effective bargaining tools with sellers to reduce the cost of the upgrade. Indeed, as Carr states, the companies must ‘manage cost and risk meticulously’. 

On the other hand, McAfee and Brynjolfsson (2008), in their article, ‘Investing in IT That Makes a Competitive Difference, assert that IT still remains a strong component of competitive advantage if applied within the business processes to improve and improvise outcome. Industry data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis of BEA was analyzed as to how IT had changed competition dynamics. It revealed new technologies were not the main force but the innovation in processes, because through the use of technology helped companies to make a difference and gain an advantage. Thus, using IT as a platform to innovate new processes within operations and propagate them widely to enhance efficiency, accuracy and timeliness become critical elements of competitive advantage. Hence, the article reinforces the relevance of IT in creating a significant difference within the industry which helps to provide a competitive advantage to the firm. Read More