Hsbs and Citigroup

Included with this full-text Harvard Business Review article: 1 Article Summary The Idea in Brief—the core idea The Idea in Practice—putting the idea to work 2 Six IT Decisions Your IT People Shouldn’t Make 10 Further Reading A list of related materials, with annotations to guide further exploration of the article’s ideas and applications

We define information technology (IT) to include not only computer technology (hardware and software) for processing and storing information, but also communications technology for transmitting information. Advances in computer and communications technologies have enabled firms to pursue IT investments. This will help them to gain maximum advantage from their knowledge assets-to leverage the knowledge of individual employees to the benefit of other employees and the organization as a whole.

Value chain is an important notion that highlights the role of information technology in the operations of a company. “A Value-Chain is the whole series of activities that create and build value at every step. The total value delivered by the company is the sum total of the value built up all throughout the

Author suggests that business corporations should spend less on the IT infrastructure by arguing that IT is no more a strategic advantage and is similar to other commodity which is assessable to each and every one at market place. Author advices organizations to spend less on the IT capital, to wait and learn from the mistake of competitors and also evaluate the risks associated with the implementation of IT infrastructure. Author has provided the details of it spending and financial outcome of the industry. Here we need to understand that financial out come from an IT investment cannot be expected immediately or in the same financial year. First of all capital goods are very different from the information good. Business benefitted from the Information technology not only based on the how much they spent on the IT rater than how their IT operations are aligned with their

In a contemporary business environment, Information Technology (IT) has become a strategic weapon organizations use in enhancing competitive advantages. With benefits that organizations derive IT projects, organizations are continuing embarking on the IT projects to enhance competitive market advantages. Typically, expenditures on

Researches in terms of IT’s relationship to firm performance have been studied for a long time, which this is based on the factual business that the exploitation of IT is a necessity, driven by competitive pressures, market demands, technology resurrections, and so forth. The problem of IT utilization is how to use it effectively and efficiently, which the effective terms refers to process performances achieved by the right tracks and at the reasonable cost, referring to the efficient term. Consequently, the IT resources should be valuable, subsequently the processes would be effective in exploiting resources and efficient in using costs. To accomplish this objective, there should be created a paradigm in order to support an IT value creation that convey benefiting IT’s potentials, thus the IT inclusion in a business is not only an era trend but also a business performance enhancement.

Competitive advantage is defined as a condition where a company is in a favorable position in order for it to be more profitable than its competitors. This can be done by selling the same goods as its competitors at a lower price or providing goods that give a greater value, which mean a high-quality product through differentiation (Business Dictionary, 2015). Every company needs to identify its competitive advantages in order for an organisation to be able to gain profit and to continue the business for a foreseeable future. Information systems (IS) have played an important role in helping organisations to achieve their objective and goals. Kroenke and Hooper (2013) suggested that, by recognizing the competitive strategy, it can determine the structure,

The article I chose was published in the International Journal of Business and Management. This article focused was based on how companies gained competitive advantaged and how strategic information systems help companies create and sustain competitive advantages. To create a basis this article first described why companies wanted to develop an information system. This article described the three general types of information systems as financial, operational, and strategic information systems. The author went in to little detail about each but focused more on the strategic information system. After going into detail about the strategic information system the authors described how companies should concentrate on information systems to

According to Porter and Miller (1985:150), the concept of the value chain 'divides a company 's activities into the technologically and

The universal intention of most businesses is to grow. This condition in turn demands that business enterprises must leverage on their competitive advantages in order to achieve this ambition. Competitive advantage is the service or product, which the customers of a business enterprise value greatly than the similar offerings from its rivals. Integration of information technology in running the affairs of the business increases it chances of achieving a competitive advantage. Nevertheless, firms must develop effective strategies that would enable them to achieve the desired results from the resources spent on information technology. It follows that what firms need is not just information system, but strategic information system (SIS) (Gelinas, & Dull, 2009).The characteristics of the information system adopted by the business determines it ability of realize its intention. Within this sense, the intention behind augmentation of information system into the business is to change the manner in which it conducts its activities and at the same time increase its competitive advantage. The purpose of this proposal is to enable Flex Tubing, Inc to enhance its competitive advantage.

The principal role that information systems have had and performed has been operational and management support. Recently companies have begun to use information systems to gain significant competitive advantage. As the pace of competition intensifies and increases the use of information systems as competitive weapons is accelerating, some much known cases for example are, the computerized reservation systems of American airlines, and the order entry system of American Hospital Supply in which they were the first to install online order entry terminals in hospitals. These cases just mentioned are examples of which strategic information systems, which are used to support or shape an organizations competitive strategy, which is its plan for gaining or maintaining an advantage.

The business world today is a competitive one. All the companies are trying their best to get ahead in the game. Because that is how they will improve and be the best at what they do. To achieve this the companies have to constantly strive hard and try to be ahead of their competitors or at least in step with them. This is where value chain comes in. Value chain deals with adding value to your product so that the company might gain a competitive edge over their rivals.

In the digital age, technology has become more of a strategic weapon than a mere functional unit supporting the business. This paradigm shift has broaden the role of technology posing a fundamental question to corporate leaders – how can they exploit its ever changing trend to gain competitive advantage rather that becoming obsolete.

Information systems are vital to the operation and management of every organization. Managers investing in IS are interested in the benefit their organizations gain from this investment. However, neither managers nor researchers have found a way to justify investment in IS based on its contribution to an organization’s performance. Most studies examining the relationship between IS and performance level have found no positive relationship between the two variables [7]. But these studies have been holistic, relating the total IS investment—software, hardware, personnel—to the total profit of the organization. Our study now suggests that the analysis should be particulate, not holistic. An

This essay critically analyses porter 's five forces and the competitive strategy contribution towards business information systems. The discussion investigates the benefits and drawbacks of applying business information systems in order for companies to compete in the technological market. Furthermore, the analysis will unravel the competitive factors influencing the profitability of a business from a strategic perspective. Due to the rapid increase of companies operating business globally technology has become a necessity to gain competitive advantage and be more cost efficient.