Strategy Driver for Global or International Business – Information Technology June 20, 2010
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This is the fourth installment of a five -part series on global corporate leadership. This article focuses on Information Technology
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Economics (Debt)
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Environmental Factors
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Political Factors
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Technology
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Social Factors
The series taken as a whole should help you define the answers for your company to these nine questions:
- Who are the customers of the future?
- How will my company distribute its product or service in the future?
- Who will be my competitors in 10 years? 25 years?
- What will the source of my company’s competitive advantage be in the future?
- What skills or capabilities will make my company unique?
- What role will strategic alliances/ mergers/acquisitions play in its strategy?
- How will my firm alter the nature of competition in its industry?
- How will my organization redefine the boundaries between industries?
- What can my company do to create a new industry?
The Opportunity
For many years, companies have devoted more than half of their capital budgets to information technology, and have acted under the simplistic assumption that ‘improved information’ results in increased productivity. The same companies have not based their computer investments on careful calculations of returns or added value, but rather on cultural and political concerns. Successful information systems must focus more on relationships and interaction than on the information itself.
The Solution
Tomorrow’s strategic technology investments will present more choices for organizations than they will know what to do with. Companies will be able to set up the technology that best fits their organization rather than the other way around. The value that organizations gain from these investments will depend on the foresight and intelligence that go into determining how their people will use technology.
There is a cliché that goes something like the following: If organizations only had greater quantities of cheaper, faster, and more useful information, they could increase their profitability and enhance their competitive positions in the global marketplace, etc., etc. On the surface, that seems to make sense. If you offer employees greater quantities of better information more quickly and at a lower cost, you should reasonably expect their performance to improve as a result.
Although in many situations where better performance resulted, even the improved information access often had little or no impact on people’s behavior. Most of us are aware of the risks of smoking. Yet millions of people still pick up the habit. Though there should be strong links between information and behavior in the enterprise, the real problem most executives face isn’t inadequate information, it’s the organization’s unwillingness to change behavior in the face of good information.
On an industry-wide level (micro level), some companies get strong returns on their digital technology investments. What seems true, however, is that on a macro level more money has been wasted on computerization than has been created.
No one denies that computerization and networking can add enormous value. But when we look at the numbers, it is clear that companies are not basing their computer investments on careful calculations of returns or added value. Other factors such as culture, politics, fashion, and competition also come into play. Best-practice methodologies often are irrelevant benchmarks for many companies investing tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in computers and networks.
There’s a fundamental difference between managing an information system and running a business on information, just as there’s a difference between operating a rivet gun and making airplanes. Managers intent on establishing technical systems subscribe to different values and practices than managers trying to set up productive business environments for their workers. Operating a business on information has a much broader array of interaction and interdependence than managing an information system.
When managers try to fit inflexible, mechanistic systems into organic contexts, they need new vocabularies to explain how people in organizations really use these systems.
Indeed, the word information loses its edge when redefined in business contexts; culture and politics and relationships may generally become at least as important.
Does the organization want to use its networks to centralize or decentralize responsibility? Does the enterprise want to make every bit of data accessible to everyone all the time? Or does it want to build a new information-access hierarchy into its intranet? Should individuals be rewarded for sharing information? Should people be encouraged to strike up electronic relationships with employees in other departments? Or should interdepartmental fraternization be deemed an inappropriate use of the network? For now, these rhetorical questions provide food for thought, however some of us encounter them in our daily business lives.
Conclusion
If an organization does decide to improve the way it shares information, it should focus first on changing the culture of sharing. Most information managers know little about designing incentives for enterprise collaboration, much less invoking it. That’s why responsible information departments have to insist from the beginning that effective enterprise computing and groupware don’t depend on transparency, replication, and semi-structured databases. They depend on how individuals are rewarded and punished for sharing and withholding information. They are about behavior, culture, and politics.
Watch the video related to system information technology
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About Author
John has a Executive MBA from the David Eccles School of Business at the University of Utah. John specializes in organizational leadership; multi-national business; financial management; international business negotiations; startups; business planning; financial analysis; corporate structures; and regulatory c
ompliance.
Comments
Example:
Information Technology System – Computers
Information System – Wikipedia
The difference between the two is Information System Outsourcing refers to the hardware and software used by a company; whereas Information Technology Outsourcing refers to the solution that needs to be developed. For example IT writes a new program for the company to use, IS puts the program on the company servers and creates the connections for employees to use the program, and then someone from IT and IS will support and maintain it.
Information System Outsourcing means that a company contracts with another company to use their hardware and software system. The company that the work is being outsourced to owns the system and is required to maintain the system and make sure it is up and running 24/7. Some companies do this because the do not want to or can’t afford to make the investment in technology or people to own and maintain their own system. An example would be a start-up company wanting a full function email and collaboration solution for their staff, but doesn’t have the money to buy the exchange server or hire the team to install and maintain the system so they contract with another company to provide these services.
Information Technology Outsourcing refers to the process of contracting with people or companies with a specific talent to provide technical development or support services. Usually this is done where a company does not have the technical skill in house or only needs a certain expertise for a short period of time. An example would be a trucking business wanting to develop a custom routing system that will take 6 months to develop. So they hire a company that specializes in this type of work to develop the proper solution rather than going through the trouble of hiring their own employees to do the work.
An information system is a "thing" either computer or human that gathers resources together and organizes them into something useable. Consider your computer. You download music and your computer knows, "ok, this is a song, I will put it here with the rest of the songs I know of…."
Information technology is the learning that uses what those songs are, but ways to display them better, by using better sound cards, better video monitors, video adaptors, etc. The Technology behind what you see on your screen is by the people who have made or engineered it that way. To find a better, more cost effective way to do it, or a different way alltogether are up to you.
The system is what we create to do a job, the job is still left to us…..
Well it depends on which one you like more. Make the one you like most your major and the other your minor. You'll get the best of both worlds!
you must volunteer for Subs. there are certain ratings ( FT) that are ONLY on submarines, so don't choose one of those. ITs can be stationed anywhere..ship or shore.
Information Systems is more generic. Information Technology primarily deals with hardware, network, internal maintenance and support, etc./
try to get A+ certified
CompTia. then maybe MCSE
Check out Davenport University http://www.davenport.edu
They have a state of the art school of technology, almost 30 campuses, plus online courses.
Good luck!