In past years, companies believed significant dollars spent on “the next big thing” was a successful approach for using technology to improve business. However, the collapse of Internet dot.com companies and IT-driven corporations has proven this approach wrong. Perhaps, as the author suggests, companies will perform best if they abandon the technology-driven view of how to improve business and adopt a business-driven view of how to use technology. Companies that implement the business-driven view correctly by adopting more conservative buying and management will experience
greater IT efficiency at lower costs.
Reading this chapter reminded me of something I had read before. Skimming through my notes, I found a past case article, “Getting IT Right” that presents similar ideas. This article is similar to this chapter in that both believe many companies failed in the past by paying outrageous prices for the latest fad. While reading this chapter, I wondered why companies would continue to invest heavily in new technologies despite questionable returns and cost overruns. The case article answers this by pointing out that the IT field was born only forty years ago while the fields of manufacturing, finance, marketing, etc have been around for centuries with established practices and principles. Therefore, decision making in these established fields is straightforward, but established principles and common understanding of IT rarely exist among managers. So management does what it thinks is best; hands the IT expert a large allowance and looks the other way.
Another section that caught my attention was the idea that companies benefit more from cheaper and simpler technology than complicated technology systems. I agree using technology that is easy to understand is important, but striking a balance between the simplicity and complexity of a technology is also important. A technology that is too simple becomes a repetitive process for the employees, creating dissatisfaction, and taking away meaning in their job. Dissatisfied employees perform at less efficient levels, which could harm the company as a whole. Therefore, I think technology should be easy to understand but not so easy that it takes away meaning in one’s job.
In conclusion, I agree with this chapter that the buying and selling of IT is about to change. Increased labor outsourcing, low-priced software, cautious buying patterns, open source software patterns, and other trends prove corporate technologies are diminishing. Spending large amounts on technology did not work in the past because technology is not a strategy. Successful companies will follow the vision of spending less to get more.
Reading this chapter reminded me of something I had read before. Skimming through my notes, I found a past case article, “Getting IT Right” that presents similar ideas. This article is similar to this chapter in that both believe many companies failed in the past by paying outrageous prices for the latest fad. While reading this chapter, I wondered why companies would continue to invest heavily in new technologies despite questionable returns and cost overruns. The case article answers this by pointing out that the IT field was born only forty years ago while the fields of manufacturing, finance, marketing, etc have been around for centuries with established practices and principles. Therefore, decision making in these established fields is straightforward, but established principles and common understanding of IT rarely exist among managers. So management does what it thinks is best; hands the IT expert a large allowance and looks the other way.
Another section that caught my attention was the idea that companies benefit more from cheaper and simpler technology than complicated technology systems. I agree using technology that is easy to understand is important, but striking a balance between the simplicity and complexity of a technology is also important. A technology that is too simple becomes a repetitive process for the employees, creating dissatisfaction, and taking away meaning in their job. Dissatisfied employees perform at less efficient levels, which could harm the company as a whole. Therefore, I think technology should be easy to understand but not so easy that it takes away meaning in one’s job.
In conclusion, I agree with this chapter that the buying and selling of IT is about to change. Increased labor outsourcing, low-priced software, cautious buying patterns, open source software patterns, and other trends prove corporate technologies are diminishing. Spending large amounts on technology did not work in the past because technology is not a strategy. Successful companies will follow the vision of spending less to get more.
2 comments:
I agree, technology is slowly starting to lose its "shine" with the massive investments by organizations. Organizations are slowly starting to focus more on their business strategy and how IT benefits that strategy. We are in the era of spending less results in most cases the same quality as spending more. It seems that companies are sometimes purchasing the brand and not the technology based on their level of spending.
I agree that companies benefit more from cheaper and simpler technology that complicated technology systems. I think that the new system and technology must be easy to use because most of users are not the IT professionals. in addition to the Spending large amounts on technology did not work in the past because technology is not a strategy. Successful companies will follow the vision of spending less to get more.
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