Strategies define a business competitive edge in the market. Clearly defined strategies that work are the key to any organization’s success. In this digital economy age, cutting-edge strategies most often than not involve information systems.
Businesses will always face competition. An organization may only have a unique edge for such a time as when competition catches up and develops either something similar or something way better. Case in point is Apple, who was the leading manufacturer of smartphones until such a time as other companies like Samsung caught on and are now bent on surpassing Apple’s achievement.
There are many ways for an organization to maintain their competitive edge. Some of the common strategies are lower prices, better products, more innovative solutions, or better service. In all these traditional strategies, information systems play a big role. Mainly because IS paves the way for improved efficiency in the work place which has huge impacts on cost and IS also paves the way for improved products which captures the market’s interest and leads to huge sales.
But what happens when IS are mainly used as tools and not viewed as something that can improve an organizations competitive edge? Too often do we see organizations trapped in the notion that IS are merely tools to help them get by the day-to-day operations so they simply purchase off-the-shelf, ready-to-implement systems that will run their basic processes for them. There are times then that instead of helping organizations achieve that competitive edge, IS becomes a liability and a hindrance to becoming better than the competition.
The observation above is particularly true when organizations tend to experiment with various information systems provider thus ending up with various systems performing similar functions but having different means in doing so. Hence, issues of proper support or integration arise and attempt to remedy them will further cost the company a large investment.
It is no longer a choice for organizations if they will embrace information systems or not. Failure to do so will guarantee the organization’s loss in the competitive battle to become the leading provider in their chosen industry. But how do they make their information systems strategic? By simply realizing the full potential of such systems, they will have gone a long way.
