It Doesn't Matter Summary

IT Doesn’t Matter

Carr said IT would play no more a role in strategy of company because IT is going to be a commodity by having propagated rapidly. Nevertheless, IT vendors threaten the executives for generating continuous demands that if they do not introduce the latest IT, they would fall behind in the competition, and then the vendors induce them to over-spend for IT.  Carr has advised the businesses to reduce IT investment and become followers, not first movers in accepting new technologies. Moreover, he suggested that they should focus on IT danger factors such as minor defects, system stopping, and securities rather than to expect to get new business opportunities through IT.

Carr’s arguments are an opposite to the opinions like aggressive investment on IT for getting competitive superiority which is the value of IT in business that we usually know. There are some reasons why Carr said in IT Doesn’t Matter.

IT became commodity and does not have any strategic value for business people. According to Carr, as investment on IT was increased and proliferated rapidly after 1980, IT becomes ubiquitous and commoditized. Everybody can buy commodity so IT does not be strategic value anymore. In the past, IT’s status within companies was strengthened as investment on IT was increased more and more. A lot of companies had confidence that they would be competitive advantage by active investment and appropriate practical use. In order to do that, they were willing to pay high consulting cost. Carr indicated the problem that IT’s value is overestimated because IT become popular. The thing made strategic is not ubiquity but scarcity. Ubiquitylated IT is no longer to be strategic value. For example, when electric, trains, and phones were introduced in the world, they provided the opportunity of new business and advantage. However, they were generalized and are positively necessary, but are not the differentiated factors. They are no longer mattered resourced in these days. IT is going to tread in these steps.

Carr classified technology as proprietary technology and infrastructure technology by strategic value. Proprietary technology is that only the company can use because it has patent of the technology. Proprietary technology offer the chance of advantage position against competing companies and it is core factor to differentiate others. On the other hands, infrastructure technology is sharing technology so this technology cannot provide any opportunities to differentiated service for business. It is included social overhead capital such as electric and water service. At the first time, infrastructure technology was monopolistic but it became generalized. Electric and phone technology was monopolistic when they came out. However, as the value achieved wide recognition and a lot of people use the value, government and companies invested intensively and then it became infrastructure technology. Carr said after infrastructure technology, we can expect only cost advantage but differentiated value.