As managers experience more volatile marketplaces, global competition, shortened product life cycles, customer pressures for tailored offerings and tighter performance standards, they increasingly depend on new information systems. The IS components in business solutions must be constructed rapidly and effectively despite the massive changes in IT (information technology) product capability, a restructured supply industry, potential shifts in system development approaches, and new ambiguities in terms of what should be regarded as a business-side versus a technical specialist task. Rockart et al. suggest that the IT organization must address “eight imperatives” that represent a combination of organizational arrangements and target achievements.1 And Ross et al. argue that companies must build and sustain three key IT assets: a strong IT staff, a reusable technology base, and a partnership between IT and business management.2
Our own analysis links the idea of a strong IT staff with two developments that have been prominent in the recent literature and in the thinking of managers with whom we have worked: the concept of core competencies and the potential for IT outsourcing. Consider first the rationale for core competencies. In an increasingly complex, fast-changing world, businesses succeed, it is claimed, through sustained commitment to excellence within a narrow domain. It is simply not possible for any organization to... To read the complete article, login or sign-up using the form below.
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