IT and Competitive Strategies

IT and Competitive Strategies

This reflection paper represents the key ideas of all the four articles. These articles are related to Information Technology and showed how Information Technology is essential for the business organizations and marketing firms in order to do gain the competitive advantage. The first two articles cover that each new technology brings new ideas. Today, Technology is advancing every day. Each day brings new ideas, revolutions and inventions. Today, no house and organization, is without computer. Information Technology is playing a vital role in reshaping lives. These two articles shared the points which are related with each articles such as competition and Information Technology. When technology develops and advances there are also problems associated with the advancement. There are certain risks associated with the advancement of technology. The competition in the market is increasing day by day. Firms tend to follow certain strategies, in order to achieve the competitive advantage. All the topics in each article are related to the role of Information Technology, which is reshaping the market values. These two articles helped business managers to seek solutions of challenges.

This century is the century of challenges and competition. Business firms are facing challenges every other day due to the advancement of technology, and rapid growth in each field. There is also frequent and uncertain changing in organizations due to sweeping changes (DeNisi, Hitt and Jackson, 2003). It is essential to achieve a competitive advantage, for senior managers in the competitive and slow growth markets. It also characterizes much business today, and references of competitive advantage, are the main issue for the scholars over last two decades (Henderson, 1983; Porter, 1985; Coyne, 1986; Prahalad and Hamel, 1990; Barney, 1991; Grant, 1991; Peteraf, 1993). With each new technology there is also a threat of competition. Managers should have an idea that information technology is not limited to computers. There are always linkages as all the works are interlinked specially related to IT. The benefits of IT are observed when output is delivered within a short time frame through strong communication. Competitive advantage can be in any aspects such as costs and differentiation.

There were unstable economic conditions previous years. This experience helped many organizations to implement strategies with the help of Information Technology especially when there was customer data exploitation. The technology is also helping in giving solution with reduced costs. Firm's abilities are also increasing using these strategies. There are reasons in each organization which tends to ignorance of technology based competitive opportunities. Including ignorance of information technology by senior managers, poor communication between the information system groups with the rest of the business, hindrance in changing systems related to information system group and the rest of business, lack of focus to achieve competitive advantages, lack of instruments to measure advantages.

CRM Data mining and ERP have changed the structure of organizations. The work within the organizations is totally Information Technology dependent. The advantages of using these technologies are that companies can have strategic planning against ...