Information & Technology Driven Strategy

With the emerging information technology, companies have become technology driven and the workers have become `knowledge workers`. This was predicted by the father of the Management and famous author Peter Drucker in the 1950s.

Companies whose strategy was driven by IT and Technology are able to obtain market advantage. Because of IT & Technology in the organization, decentralization structure has become more important; so also work groups and knowledge sharing. With the main role of the `knowledge worker`, participative management has become crucial based on knowledge than on hierarchical authority.

Peter Serge et al in 1990 created the `learning organization` and popularized it. The company`s ability to gather, analyze and use information is a vital requirement for business success in the information age. Serge suggested the following structure:-

• people can continuously expand their capacity to learn and be productive,
• new patterns of thinking are nurtured,
• collective aspirations are encouraged to see the `whole picture` together,

An IT & Technology company or a `learning company` must have disciplines, according to Serge. These are –

• personal responsibilities, self reliance and mastery – we are masters of our destiny; both problems and opportunities are handled by learning the required skill through information and technlogy’
• mental models – we must explore how our mental models `affect` our behaviour.
• Shared vision – sharing the `vision` for the future with all to provide guidance and energy for the future ahead,
• Team learning – to learn as a team or group. To change gear from spirit of advocacy to spirit of enquiry,
• Systems thinking – look at the whole picture than its parts. This is the glue or bond that integrates the other points above into a coherent strategy.

With the Information Technology strategy –

• the competition has changed because of knowledge,
• a dominant company becomes a near monopoly,
• net worked industries have similar advantages in which inter-operability requires compatibility between users (e.g. word processor documents),
• once a product has achieved `dominance` because of better use of information and technology, even other superior products cannot compete.

Thus Information & Technology companies can focus on a group of customers at a time, and then use this as a base for marketing to other groups. Companies can create an effect and momentum for a product to become a `defacto` standard. Access to Information Systems have altered management to take a much more comprehensive view of strategy management than ever before.