MIT Sloan Management Review

Recent technology advances in mobile computing and augmented reality are blurring the boundaries between traditional and Internet retailing, enabling retailers to interact with consumers through multiple touch points and expose them to a rich blend of offline sensory information and online content. In response to these changes, retailers and their supply-chain partners will need to rethink their competitive strategies.

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.

A company’s digital business model describes how the enterprise interacts digitally with its customers to generate value. If you lack a good digital business model, your customers may leave you behind. This article presents a framework to help enterprises compete digitally with three capabilities: their content, customer experience and platform. The framework is illustrated with case studies of top performers like Amazon, Apple, LexisNexis and USAA and results from an effective practices survey.

The Internet Revolution has so far not produced the kind of long-term productivity growth seen during the Industrial Revolution. Digital technology drove U.S. productivity growth above three percent annually only between 1996 and 2004. Since then, productivity has fallen to about 1.6 percent a year. General Electric argues that productivity growth will jump again as the industrial Internet emerges, connecting machines like turbines and jet engines to factories, and using analytics to make better decisions about maintenance and production.

Steven Johnson’s new book “Future Perfect: The Case For Progress In A Networked Age” shows that “collaborative peer networks outperform free-market arrangements all the time,” according to the Guardian.

New research finds that investments companies make in information technology increase profitability and sales more than investments in advertising or R&D do.

Five questions to consider when trying to figure out which IT innovations to pay attention to versus which to wait out because they might prove to be lemons.

The relentless advance of information technology today means that a key task of the business manager now is to cope with one wave of IT innovations after another. At any given time, an executive is likely to feel more or less inundated by a current wave, unsure of what all the commotion is about, unable to avoid the topic in conversation and yet suspicious that the latest “killer app” may be mostly hype. Is there a better way?

We should give our information delete dates, says Mayer-Schönberger.

Should information be finite? Should it cease to exist after a certain point?

On the face of it, an expiration date on information sounds like a wild idea.

In a TED talk, Harald Haas of the University of Edinburgh shows how a beam from a light bulb can be rigged up to transmit a high definition video stream. The grand vision: LED lights with added microchips will let us transmit thousands of data streams in parallel, enabling us to access the Internet on smartphones wherever there is a light source.

Five ways that user-focused IT professionals can create tools for executives to access information quickly and flexibly.

The annual MIT Sloan CIO Symposium will take place Wednesday, May 18. Featured speakers include MIT’s Erik Brynjolfsson, Andrew McAfee, Jeanne W. Ross, and Sandy Pentland.

Virtual worlds have been slow to catch on in businesses — but employees familiar with the technology may help.

Are web-based technologies having a significant impact -- whether in a good or bad way -- on your job?

If technologies such as social media, blogging or online collaboration tools are changing the way you do your work, researchers at the Center for Information Systems Research (CISR) at the MIT Sloan School of Management want to hear about it.�

“Business users tend to ignore IT tools that require them to switch contexts, juggle multiple browser windows, and learn new collaboration habits . . . Eighty-three percent of business users continue to abuse email, ping-ponging document attachments back and forth, thus creating document chaos.�

The Economist’s website hosts well-conceived online debates on topics ranging from whether religion is a force for good (75% of readers voted no) to whether promoting math and science is the best way to stimulate future innovation (74% said yes).

If you’re like a lot of people, during your work day you might check 40 websites. You could be switching between programs such as Word and Excel and your email application 36 times an hour.

Large companies that invest in trendy IT innovations may see their reputations — and CEO compensation — increase the next year.

These days, most executives recognize the importance of information technology innovation — but that doesn’t mean their companies’ IT budgets reflect that emphasis. In a 2009 study conducted by our firm, A.T.

Innovators tend to think that information technology systems are too orderly and controlling even to cope with the messy process of innovation — much less enable it. But as some leading companies show, smart managers bring the whole IT menu to the challenge.