I found Debbie's comments on valuing IT especially striking
because I am busily worrying about how ERP (Enterprise Requirements
Planning) software affects organizational response capability. ERP is a
special set of IT -- the big names are SAP, Baan, PeopleSoft and Oracle.
The promises are grand, but the outcomes more problematic, as far as I can
tell. The area of concern has much to do with Debbie's rather elegantly
simple third category: BOTTOM LINE indeed, but also the UNINTENDED
CONSEQUENCES, most particularly in terms of organizational learning and
response-ability.
Does anyone have experiences to report? Has anyone seen these
systems actually work, and if so, what kinds of costs? Anecdotal evidence
so far says they cost a huge amount in dollars, time, and internal
organizational uproar, yet are hugely popular because "everybody's doing
it," because they are defined as "the rational way to do business," and
because they promise lots of benefits from the IT links between "all
functions of the business." But do they deliver the benefits sought?
Sam Jelinek
Mariann Jelinek, Ph.D.
Richard C. Kraemer Professor of Business Administration
Graduate School of Business | The only real, enduring strategic advantage
College of William and Mary |comes from changing the rules of the game.
P.O. Box 8795
Williamsburg, VA 23185-8795
Tel. (757) 221-2882 FAX: (757) 229-6135
--Mariann Jelinek <mxjeli@facstaff.wm.edu>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>