MIT Sloan Management Review

Strategic alliances are arguably more critical now than ever before. In this highly digital age, organizations rely increasingly on Internet-based or computerized products and services that require the simultaneous cooperation of multiple organizations. The authors’ research has shown that flexible IT systems can help enable successful partnerships. But the opposite — that inflexible IT systems can hinder partnerships — is true, too. And it’s something about which organizations should be careful.

Given its increasingly integral role in business and society, the Internet’s security flaws are troubling, to say the least.

Recent research indicates that managers at top-performing companies are able to identify the nature and array of initiatives they may need to implement, then determine the unique combination of IT service clusters necessary to create that agility.

Managers are continually being confronted with new and ever-changing competitive pressures from deregulation, globalization, ubiquitous connectivity and the convergence of industries and technologies.

New information technologies bring new business challenges: threats from new competitors and opportunities to change focus and practices. The business impact of new technology usually receives the most attention —appropriately — but managers shouldn’t overlook the rippling effects on the company’s IT function.

Creating a business-driven IT infrastructure requires that executives thoroughly understand their firm’s strategic context. By formulating a series of business and IT maxims — short simple statements of the business’s positions — managers can identify the IT infrastructure service suited to their company. Organizational, political, cultural, and reward system issues, as well as a lack of IT leadership, may form implementation barriers.