ABSTRACT
In recent years, many companies have engaged in extensive (and expensive) reengineering projects that relied on technological tools. Their results have often been disappointing. Studies suggest that those projects that failed lacked technological tools for rapidly delivering accurate and meaningful information that could be used to identify and exploit opportunities in a controlled manner. Because decision-makers need different kinds of information, such tools must work with both commonly used data and specialized data that meet unique user needs. This is a significant challenge. Running a business today is fraught with problems: insecurities caused by changing marketplaces and legislation, new technologies that render recent acquisitions obsolete, and tax laws that alter the profitability of long-term strategies. Managers must respond quickly with effective decisions; and to make those decisions, managers depend on the rapid delivery of accurate information. Many businesses have installed advanced systems infrastructures, common databases, and workgroup software to provide this information. Technology has thus infiltrated not only the products and services that businesses deliver, but also the means by which they deliver them. If the use of technology is ubiquitous, however, how can a company use it to gain a competitive edge? The answer is by incorporating technology both into the company’s products and into the management of the company itself (this is the subject of this chapter). How a company wields technology determines the degree of control it exercises over
its business environment, that is, its ability to monitor changes in this environment and to respond to these changes with the best decisions it can make in the quickest timeframe.
