Linking Information Technology and Corporate Strategy: an Organizational View

Considerable attention is currently focused on using information technology to obtain and maintain competitive advantage. Numerous mini-cases have been used to illustrate the use of information systems for competitive advantage, and various conceptual frameworks have been proposed to aid in the identification of such applications. Much of this work is grounded in a single concept of strategy formulation, an approach that we refer to as "top-down." A survey of senior information system executives demonstrates the potential problems of relying on a top-down approach. A second, "adaptive" approach, appears to offer potential value for the identification of competitive applications in organizations facing considerable environmental turbulence or in which senior strategists are relatively uninformed about information system resources. Five organizational roles are defined that can help support this adaptive approach. cover of widely read business magazines INTRODUCTION (Fortune. 1985; Business Week, 1985). Continued decline in the unit cost of computer Such attention is welcome legitimization for inhardware and steady improvement in the flexiformation systems managers who have worked bility and power of computer software have led for years to communicate the exciting potential to dramatic growth in the use of information of information technology. But management's technology in American business. Applications new interest in competitive information systems have proliferated rapidly beyond corporate walls presents a difficult challenge for information to encompass suppliers, distributors and consystems managers, who frequently find themsumers, and consequently, some applications of selves charged with responsibility for identifying information technology have acquired the uland implementing strategic applications. Altimate label of respectability: they are called though management attention has been focused "strategic" in business journals (McFarlan, on the potential of competitive information sys1985), and featured within, and even on the tems, there is a dearth of practical, and even