Information Technology

Information Technology



Information Technology

Introduction

Information technology has moved from the realms of being a follower of business practice to being a core element of business infrastructure and, in some cases, almost the whole business. In a global organisation, control and co-ordination would be impossible without information and communications technology. The data network is now as important as the social network of an organisation: in fact, they are often one and the same thing. Gossip now takes place on the network via e-mail, rather than by the water cooler.(Burns, 1961,235) So how do we use this increasingly pervasive and important technology to make our organisations fit for a world of increasing uncertainty?

The technology itself is changing. There is much more importance placed on communications than on computing - and the two are merging to the degree that it is sometimes impossible to tell them apart. Computing technology changes the way in which we carry out specific business tasks, but communications technology changes the whole nature of large business processes, and of decision making. As such it is this increasing development of telecommunications that offers real potential to affect structures to gain flexibility.(Malone,1984,112)

The technology allows an organisation to decide the appropriate levels of devolution and centralisation on the basis of choice and preferred management approaches, rather than on the ability to handle decision-making information at the point of the decision. (Keen,1991,114)

Environmental change, IT and organisational structure

A number of researchers have examined the impact of information and communications technologies on organisational behaviour and structure. Burns (1961),looking at organisation theory, has suggested ways in which IT can affect decision making and the design of organisations.

There is a general consensus that the implementation of IT reduces timespans of decision-making processes (and allows the processing of more complex sets of data before alternative courses of action can be evaluated) and allows faster response to customer needs and to a changing environment.

Thankfully, the cost of technology continues to fall sharply - although, somewhat paradoxically, the “spend” in technology continues to rise. This falling cost has resulted in enormous investment in information systems, and an increasing reliance on them for basic operational processing. Presently, IT amounts to nearly one-half of US firms' annual capital expenditures and increasingly affects how firms organise, do business, and compete (Burns, 1961,235). This is likely to continue for the foreseeable medium-term future.

It also increasingly applies to all industries. Although certain industries have a natural propensity to the use of modern technologies, no industry can remain aloof. Technology pervades manufacturing, the service sector and even government and the public sector. It also pervades all levels - from the shopfloor to the chief executive, from the typist to the senior administrator.

However, it is not introduced without a degree of pain. We have already suggested that there is a link between:

technology;

organisational structure; and

business processes.

If this link is not recognised, tension will arise from the perhaps hidden but real effects that the introduction of technology brings, and the pre-technology structures and processes that have failed to ...