To What Degree Does IT Influence Competitive Advantage‪?‬

The world of business has emerged from the industrial age into an information economy and transitioning further into a digital world, a "knowledge society” with information technology (IT1) as driving force behind it. In the past years, the relentless advances of IT in the world of business has been influenced by changing the ways in which corporation execute their daily operations, perform in markets and design their products. Many organisations are faced today with increased competition at a higher performance level driven by globalisation. This is supported by Ward&Peppard (2001i) who states that everyone’s working life and personal environment has been influenced by IT and is becoming an increased integral component. E-commerce and e-business are no longer buzzwords, they have infiltrated our homes via TV advertisement and Internet.
IT is an important factor for today’s organisations, which are forced to continuously re-profile themselves, changing functional hierarchies, and subsequently adapt to a very changing market conditions, effectively and efficiently. Organisation need to quickly and constant respond to customer’s needs and competitive pressure, with IT enabled services, products and distribution channels (Mutsaers,Zee,Giertz,1998ii). The continuous rapid improvement in IT is having a profound impact on competitors and competitive advantage of an organisation.
There is a number of ways of looking at it, however the question here is not, if a company should make use of IT or not. It’s rather, how IT is implemented and subsequent adopted throughout an organisation, which ultimately confers competitive advantage. Every human endeavour in the world of business is influenced by IT, which is reaching across all lines of business globally.