Creating Business Advantage with IT

1. Creating Business Advantage with IT • As the century closed, the world became smaller. The public rapidly gained access to new and dramatically faster communication technologies. • Entrepreneurs, able to draw on unprecedented scale economies, built vast empires. • Everyday day brought forth new technological advances to which old business models seemed no longer to apply

2. IT Evolution • 1950 - 1960 • Hardware costs and limitation of capacity and reliability. Limited IT personnel • Mainframe computer, data processing center. • Mid 1960 - Early 1980 • Difficulty in delivering reliable system on time and within budget, productivity of system developers, tools limitation. • Introduction of PCs • 1980- Early 1990 • Communication networks • Powerful desktops, Laptops, internet etc. • Late 1999- • Internet, wireless network, etc. Hardware constraints Data processing Software constraints Management Information Systems Hardware constraints User related constraints Strategic Information Systems Organization environment constraints

3. Creating Business Advantage with IT • Notes: • The winners in the world of the information highway and the networked society will not just be the providers of the fibre, the computer terminals devices, and the software packages but…. • Organizations (large and small) who are able to perceive new channels for reaching their customers, identify transformed products and services which can be offered, and those who have the courage and will to rapidly reposition their organizations and undertake the risks, turmoil and opprobrium which often accompanies radical change.

4. Forces that Shape Business Strategy • Three frameworks that can be used to guide analysis of the impact of IT on strategy • Value Chain • Industry and competitive analysis • Strategic Grid Analysis

5. Value Chain Framework • Tool for identifying and analyzing the stream of activities through which products and services are created and delivered to customers. • Once activities are defined, it becomes possible to analyze the economics at each step in the chain by identifying both the costs incurred and the value created. • These activities can be located inside a firm or across firm boundaries. • Accompanying the physical value chain is a related information value chain through which the involved parties coordinate and control activities • Value chain participants (Market Roles)

6. Value chain participants

7. Value Chain Framework • Value Chain Analysis • Industrial Economy Business Model • Favored production • Economy of Scale • Are achieved when a market participant or a network of participants is able to leverage capabilities and infrastructure to increase its revenue and profit within a single product line • Economy of scope • … to launch new product line or businesses or enter a new market • The point within a value chain where maximum economics of scale and scope are created determines market power

8. Value Chain Framework • Industrial Economy Business Model • The innovations favored production • Physical/analog production (machine, telephones, steam engines, etc) • Operational model • Assembly line, marketing, sales • Management model • Hierarchy • Social/regulation system • Specialized work, pay-for- performance incentives, etc

9. The Value Chain Support activities Primary activities Inbound logistics Materials receiving, storing, and distribution to manufacturing premises Operations Transforming inputs into finished products. Outbound logistics Storing and distributing products Marketing and Sales Promotions and sales force Service Service to maintain or enhance product value Corporate infrastructure Support of entire value chain, e.g. general management planning, financing, accounting, legal services, government affairs, and QM Human resources management Recruiting, hiring, training, and development Technology Development Improving product and manufacturing process Procurement Purchasing input

10. Forces that shape competition • The Networked Economy Business Model • Innovation model • Digital production and distribution technologies (broadband and wireless, networks, multimedia content creation, etc) • Operational model • Integrated supply chains and buy chains • Management model • Team, partnerships, consortia • Social/regulatory systems • Ownership incentives, virtual work, distance learning, etc)

11. Forces that shape competition • Network Economy of Scale • Are achieved when a “community” of firms shares its infrastructure, capabilities, and customer base to produce and distribute products faster, better, and cheaper than competitors can • Network Economy of Scope • … when community uses its shared infrastructure to produce and distribute new products and services, enter new market, or lunch new business more quickly, at less cost, and more successfully than competitors can

13. Industry and Competitive Analysis (ICA) • ICA framework postulates that economics and the competitive forces in the industry are the result of five basic forces: • Bargaining power of suppliers • Bargaining power of buyers • Treat of new entrants • Treat of substitute products or services • Competitive intensity and position among traditional business rivals

15. The strategic Grid Analysis • The value chain and the industry analysis help in framing the strategic decision

16. Categories of Strategic Relevance and Impact A contingency appropriate to IT management. Factory Strategic High Goal: Transform organization or industry Leadership: Senior executives & board Project Management: Change management Goal: Improve performance of core processes Leadership: Business unit executives Project Management: Process engineering IT Impact on core operations Support Turnaround Goal: Improve local performance Leadership: Local level oversight Project Management: Grassroots experimentation Goal: Identify and launch new Ventures Leadership: Venture incubation unit Project Management: New Venture development Low Low High IT Impact on core strategy

17. Impact of IT on Strategic Decision Making • Can IT be used to reengineer core value activities and change the basis of competition? • Can IT change the nature of relationship and the balance of power among buyers and suppliers? • Can IT build or reduce barriers to entry? • Can IT decrease or increase switching costs? • Can IT add value to existing products and services to create New Ones

18. Assessing IT-enabled business • Opportunity and Risk • Risks increased when executives • 1. Have poor understanding of sources of competitive dynamics in the industry within which their firm competes • 2. Fail to fully understand the long-term implications of a strategic system that have been launched or one lunched by a competitor or another industry participant • 3. Lunch a system that brings litigation or regulation to the detriment of the innovator • 4. Fail to account for the time, effort, and cost required to ensure user adoption, assimilation, and effective utilization.

19. Assessing IT-enabled business • Opportunities and Risks • What business are we in? Who are our customers, suppliers, and business partners? What value do we provide to these key constituencies (including employees and owners). What are the competitive dynamics and balance of power within the industry? Can IT be used to create value and change the basis of competition • Who is our biggest competitor today and who will it be in future? How easy is it for new players to enter our market. How easily can customer, suppliers and partners switch • How efficient and effective is our core operation activities and processes? How easily or difficult is it to do business with partners

20. Assessing IT-enabled business • Opportunities and Risks • Do we want to be an industry leader or follower? • Will changes in related industry (or even unrelated industries) influence our industry? • Do we have the required infrastructure to adapted to rapid changes in the industry? • Do our planning and budgeting process enable us to identify and effectively respond to strategic opportunities and threats