Information Technology management and Benefits management delivering value from IS/ IT investments by John Ward and the IT research agenda article helped me understand the foundations for IT focus during the early 2K's. John Ward was particularly helpful for understanding application portfolio and how business applications translate to IS/ IT applications. I learnt how technologies can be monitored and managed in a business in these books.
The first 3-4 years of the last decade was a messy period for IT. The business alignment with IT was lacking, spending approaches were not controlled and articles like Nicholas Carr's "IT does n't matter" created confusion than clarity. IT storms were much earlier than the economy storms in the US.
In the early Y2Ks, I read Tom Peters' Reimagine - Today I see everything talked in that book in practice. I also read books by Don Tapscott - I continue to read his works. Check out his work at www.dontapscott.com.
Tapscott discusses paradigm shifts in the world of technologies and businesses.
The first one I read was "Paradigm Shift" by Tapscott. It helped me understand and teach how the programmer jobs/ roles were changing and how IT can transform businesses (that was when IT jobs were being lost at a rapid pace in this country and outsourcing at a large scale was new).
I also read about spending approaches to understand some of the big mistakes made by businesses during the '90s. The book is titled "Technology paradise lost".
I keep bringing organizational culture and leadership as themes that influence technology decisions. I convey the message that a manager's role is a very responsible role via the class activities. In a networked organization, every worker must think like one and act like a leader. So, we focus on the work they do, the role they play at their work. Most of the students I teach are pursuing some sort of a business degree.
For competitive advantage, cost leadership, differentiation, innovation, operational effectiveness, customer orientation are talked about in theory.
Porter's five force model is the basic framework for competitive advantage.
What caught my attention in the Transient advantage article are the following lines:
"Indeed, one of the most influential strategy frameworks, Michael Porter's five forces model, assumes that you are mainly comparing your company to others in a similar industry. In today's environment, where industry lines are quickly blurring, this can blindside you".
Now a days, the focus of advanced countries is innovation, while the focus of developing countries is on the rest.
Innovation must happen with small experiments, continuously in organizations in all areas leading to decisions - big and small. I encourage my students to experiment in their own work space, try to find better ways to do things at work questioning old approaches. I tell them that it is their era - everything about work is changing for the workforce.
These are the reasons I chose the transient advantage article to set the stage on the theme for the workshops. Any advantage has a timeline. And it is getting short.
More on the way information systems were viewed before and up to the early Y2K's - mid 2Ks and current and emerging trends next.
