It Doesn't Matter - Nicholas Carr - Analysis

INTRODUCTION

The writer of the case “IT doesn’t Matter” Nicholas Carr wants to convey a message that IT has become a commodity in today’s market and it no longer holds the strategic value to anyone.

The article gives an example where companies around the world pump more than $2 trillion in IT sector to beat their competitors in certain way. The main reason for these companies to invest in IT is to create strategic value for their product or service which can be differentiated from competitors. This has lead to a situation where IT is affordable and accessible to everyone. Thus, the author believes that IT has become a mere commodity comparable to railways and electric power and has lost its strategic importance.

However, the author believes that as IT’s power and presence have expanded, companies have come to view it as a resource ever more critical to their success.

In 1980’s most executives looked down on computers as proletarian tools- glorified calculators and typewriters- best relegated to low level employees like secretaries and analysts.

Today, that has changed completely as chief executives constantly talk about the strategic value of IT and how they can use IT to gain competitive edge.

The author argues that IT’s very power and presence have begun to transform them from potentially strategic resources into commodity factors of production. Therefore, IT is seen as latest addition to broadly adopted technologies which were at first infrastructure of commerce but after a period of time they have become ubiquitous.

The main task here is to examine the author’s viewpoint, understand the problems that he is trying to explain and offer the other side of the argument which is missing in the author’s article.

ISSUES/PROBLEMS

The issues or problems that the article tries to put up can be identified as follows:

IT is no more strategic to any company.

The author argues that IT is no more strategic because it is easily available to anybody. It is no more a scarce goods and he argues that profit margins on IT-related innovations will consequently disappear. He compares IT with steam engines, railroads; telegraph lines which were adopted by businesses to gain strategic value when they were relatively new.

It is a mere commodity that no more provides competitive advantage.

The author is comparing IT as a transport mechanism which carries digital information just as railroads carry goods and power grids carry electricity. He goes on arguing that IT is more valuable when it is shared rather than used in isolation. The technical standardization and interoperability nature of IT has made it a commodity.

IT is an infrastructural