DIS511 SEP-DEC 2022 INFORMATION SYSTEMS FOR STRATEGIC ADVANTAGE AND GLOBAL

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INFORMATION SYSTEMS FOR STRATEGIC ADVANTAGE

In almost every industry some firms do better than most others. Such firms are said to have a
competitive advantage over others. Information systems can contribute to strategic
advantages. The strategic role of information systems involves using information technology
to develop products, services, and capabilities that give a company major advantages over the
competitive forces it faces in the global marketplace.

Organizations create strategic information systems, information systems that support or shape
the competitive position and strategies of an E-business enterprise. A strategic information
system can be any kind of information system (transaction processing system, management
information systems, decision support systems, etc.) that helps an organization gain a
competitive advantage, reduce a competitive disadvantage, or meet other strategic enterprise
objectives. When a firm uses information technology strategically, it devices business
strategies that use IT to develop products, services and capabilities that give it competitive
advantage.

A firm can survive and succeed in the long run if it successfully develops strategies to
confront five competitive forces that shape the structure of competition in its industry. These
forces, at least, are: (1) rivalry of competitors within its industry, (2) threat of new entrants,
(3) threat of substitutes, (4) the bargaining power of customers, and (5) the bargaining power
of suppliers. The forces and the use of information systems and technologies for competitive
advantage are as follows:

Traditional Competitors
All firms share market space with other competitors who are: continuously devising new,
more efficient ways to produce by introducing new products and services; and attempting to
attract customers by developing their brands and imposing switching costs on their
customers.

New Market Entrants

In a free economy with mobile labor and financial resources, new companies are always
entering the marketplace. In some industries, there are very low barriers to entry, whereas in
other industries, entry is very difficult.

Substitute Products and Services

In just about every industry, there are substitutes that your customers might use if your prices
become too high. New technologies create new substitutes all the time. For instance, Internet
telephone service can substitute for traditional telephone service, and fiber-optic telephone
lines to the home can substitute for cable TV lines.

Customers
A profitable company depends in large measure on its ability to attract and retain customers
and charge high prices. The power of customers grows if they can easily switch to a
competitor's, products and services, or if they can force a business and its competitors to

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compete on price alone in a transparent marketplace where there is little product
differentiation, and all prices are known instantly (such as on the Internet). A firm must guard
against this.

Suppliers
The market power of suppliers can have a significant impact on firm profits, especially when
the firm cannot raise prices as fast as can suppliers. The more different suppliers a firm has,
the greater control it can exercise over suppliers in terms of price, quality, and delivery
schedules. For instance, manufacturers of laptop PCs almost always have multiple competing
suppliers of key components, such as keyboards, hard drives, and display screens.

New forces
In their groundbreaking book about the eBusiness, Downes and Mui (1998) identified three
‘New Forces’ to consider alongside Porter’s Five Forces of competitive strategy. These new
forces are Globalisation, Digitalisation and Deregulation.

Globalisation
Globalisation describes the way that businesses using eCommerce as a channel in its various
forms, potentially reach a global audience. Globalisation offers the chance to grow a market
beyond the locale of the business. Why? With the Internet, information is easily available. As
information is so freely available, millions of individuals and firms from around the world
become potential partners, customers and competitors with increased competition as a
consequence. Internet enables distant competitors to bring competition into the local market,
or even an indirect competitor to compete more directly with an existing firm.

Digitalisation
Digitalisation describes the way in which storage, processing and transmission of information
impacts processes such as sales and customer service, and in many cases, the product or
service itself can be re-packaged or delivered electronically. This gives competitive
advantages to some organizations while posing threats to others. For instance, the free online
Wikipedia, which anyone can contribute to, or edit, has completely turned the encyclopaedia
model on its head and effectively made printed encyclopaedias redundant.

Deregulation
Deregulation broadly represents the opening up of markets that were previously closed by
factors such as monopoly, state owned or controlled production or by restrictive legislation or
trade practices. Key industries affected by Deregulation and which are vital to eBusiness
include telecommunications and broadcasting. As new operators have entered the markets,
there have been notable innovations created, as these new entrants have not necessarily had
the benefit or burden of legacy systems and processes. The pressures of having to compete
have forced new operators to consider fresh ways of doing things. Businesses can counter the
threats of competitive forces that they face by implementing five basic competitive strategies.

Competitive strategies
Cost Leadership Strategy. Becoming a low-cost producer of products and services in the
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industry. Also, a firm can find ways to help its suppliers or customers reduce their costs or to
increase the costs of their competitors. A firm can use IT to substantially reduce the cost of
business processes.
Differentiation Strategy. Developing ways to differentiate a firm's products and services from
its competitors' or reduce the differentiation advantages of competitors. This may allow a
firm to focus its products or services to give it an advantage in particular segments or niches
of a market.

Innovation Strategy. Finding new ways of doing business. This may involve the
development of unique products and services, or entry into unique markets or market
niches. It may also involve making radical changes to the business processes for producing
or distributing products and services that are so different from the way a business has been
conducted that they alter the fundamental structure of an industry. It may also create new
products and services that include IT components.
Growth Strategies. Significantly expanding a company's capacity to produce goods and
services, expanding into global markets, diversifying into new products and services, or
integrating into related products and services. A firm could also use IT to manage regional
and global business expansion.

Alliance Strategies. Establishing new business linkages and alliances with customers,
suppliers, competitors, consultants, and other companies. These linkages may include
mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures, forming of "virtual companies," or other marketing,
manufacturing, or distribution agreements between a business and its trading partners. A firm
could develop inter-enterprise information systems linked by the Internet and extranets that
support strategic business relationships with customers, suppliers, subcontractors, and others.

Note: An organization may use one, some or all the strategies to some extent to handle the
forces of competition. Can you think of examples for this? Check the Internet.

How information technology can be used to support a firm's competitive strategies

Several key strategies that are also implemented with information technology in addition to
the basic strategies include: Locking in customers or suppliers, building switching costs,
raising barriers to entry, and leveraging investment in information technology.

Investments in information technology can allow a business to lock in customers and

suppliers (and lock out competitors) by building valuable new relationships with them. This
could include using information technology to improve quality of service to customers. This
can deter both customers and suppliers from abandoning a firm for its competitors or
intimidating a firm into accepting less-profitable relationships.

Investments in information systems and technology can be used in building switching costs into
the relationships between a firm and its customers or suppliers. This is used to make
customers or suppliers dependent on the continued use of innovative, mutually beneficial
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inter-enterprise information systems. Then, they become reluctant to pay the costs in time,
money, effort, and inconvenience that it would take to change to a company's competitors.

A firm could also erect barriers to entry that would discourage or delay other companies from
entering a market. This is by making investments in information technology to improve its
operations or promote innovation. Typically, this happens by increasing the amount of
investment or the complexity of the technology required to compete in an industry or a market
segment. Such actions would tend to discourage firms already in the industry and deter
external firms from entering the industry.
Investing in information technology enables a firm to innovate. For instance to:
• Create new products and services that include IT components.
• Develop unique new markets or market niches with the help of IT.
• Make radical changes to business processes with IT that dramatically cut costs, improve
quality, efficiency, or customer service, or shorten time to market.

Investing in information technology enables a firm to build strategic IT capabilities that

allow it to take advantage of strategic opportunities when they arise. In many cases, this
results when a company invests in advanced computer-based information systems to improve
the efficiency of its own business processes. Then, armed with this strategic technology
platform, the firm can leverage investment in information technology by developing new
products and services that would not be possible without a strong IT capability. An example is
the development of corporate intranets and extranets by many companies, which enables them
to leverage their previous investments in Internet browsers, PCs, servers, and client-server
networks. Could we this in point of sale terminals?

In many other ways Web-based systems are changing the nature of competition and even
industry structure.

Transformations of organizations that relate to competitive strategies

Business Process Reengineering (BPR) – This is a fundamental rethinking and radically
redesign of business processes achieve large improvements in cost, quality speed and service.
In this, business processes are analyzed, simplified and redesigned. Workflow large
improvements s are reorganized, steps are combined. (Give benefits and limitations.)
Becoming an Agile company - An agile company is a business that has the ability to quickly
adapt to market changes. An agile company must be fast-moving and flexible, have rapid
response to unexpected obstacles, lead change, be in touch with customers, and have
continuous competitive advantage, and flat organizational structure for quick communication.
An agile company supports mass production; they use the Internet to integrate and manage
their business processes such that they mass produce while providing individualized products
and services. Examples are Dell and WordPress. Read https://www.turbinehq.com/blog/4-examples-
agile-working (Give more examples, benefits and limitations.)

Creating a Virtual company - An organization that uses information technology to link

people, organizations, assets, and ideas. Example is Amazon. A virtual business employs

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electronic means to transact business as opposed to a traditional brick and mortar
business that relies on face-to-face transactions with physical documents and physical
currency or credit. Brick and mortar business is a physical presence of an organization or
business in a building or other structure. The term brick-and-mortar business is often used to
refer to a company that possesses or leases retail stores, factory production facilities, or
warehouses for its operations. (Give more examples, benefits and limitations.)

Building a Knowledge creating company - A company that consistently create new business
knowledge, disseminate it widely throughout the company, and quickly building the new
knowledge into their products and services. Knowledge-creating company can quickly and
efficiently share knowledge, create innovation, and respond quickly to the market
changes .Knowledge could be explicit or tacit. Explicit knowledge is the data, documents,
and things written down or stored on computers. Tacit knowledge is the “how-tos” of
knowledge which resides in workers. It is not recorded or codified because it has evolved in
the employees mind through years. It can give an organization a competitive edge given that
it may not be easily copied. When codified, we see it as explicit knowledge. It is found most
commonly at highly successful Japanese competitors like Honda, Canon, Matsushita, NEC,
Sharp, and Kao. These companies have become famous for their ability to respond quickly to
customers, create new markets, rapidly develop new products, and dominate emergent
technologies (Give more examples, benefits and limitations.)

Competitive intelligence on the Internet

The Internet can be used to help a company conduct competitive intelligence easily, quickly,
and relatively inexpensively in the following ways: (You need to know what to look for and
where to find it on the Internet or otherwise.)

 Review competitor’s Web sites. Such Visits can reveal information about new products or
projects, trends in budgeting, advertising strategies, financial strength, and much more.
 Analyze related electronic discussion groups. Internet newsgroups and Web site
discussion boards can help you find out what people think about or react to a company
and its products.
 Examine publicly available financial documents.
 Do market research at your own Web site. You can conduct surveys or pose questions to
visitors at your site. You can even give prizes to those visitors who best describe the
strengths and weaknesses of competitors’ products.
 Use an information delivery service to gather news on competitors. Information delivery
services find what is published on the Internet, including newsgroup correspondence
about your competitors and their products, and send it to you. This is known as push
technologies.
 Use corporate research companies. Corporate research and ratings companies may
provide, for a fee, information ranging from risk analysis to stock market analysts’ reports
about your competitors.
 Dig up the dirt on your competitors. This includes damaging legal cases and credit history
of competitors.
 Find out what are the “going rates” for employee pay.
 Find corporation credit history. This could be found in court records, banks, annual
reports, and credit bureaus.
Examples where ICT has been used for strategic advantage
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We spend lots of money on information systems for support of business processes and
strategic objectives. The ways that organizations accomplish their business processes can be a
source of competitive strength. Can you see this in the examples that follow?

Operational Excellence
Wal-Mart, the largest retailer on Earth, exemplifies the power of information systems coupled
with brilliant business practices and supportive management to achieve world-class
operational efficiency. In 2005, Wal-Mart attained more than $285 billion in sales-nearly
one-tenth of retail sales in the United States-in large part because of its RetailLink system,
which digitally links its suppliers to every one of Wal-Mart's 5,289 stores worldwide. As
soon as a customer purchases an item, the supplier monitoring the item knows to ship a
replacement to the shelf.

Low-Cost Leadership
Use information systems to achieve the lowest operational costs and the lowest prices. The
classic example is Wal-Mart. By keeping prices low and shelves well stocked using a
legendary inventory replenishment system, Wal-Mart became the leading retail business in
the United States. Wal-Mart's continuous replenishment system sends orders for new
merchandise directly to suppliers as soon as consumers pay for their purchases at the cash
register. Point-of-sale terminals record the bar code of each item passing the checkout counter
and send a purchase transaction directly to a central computer at Wal-Mart headquarters. The
computer collects the orders from all Wal-Mart stores and transmits them to suppliers.
Suppliers can also access Wal-Mart's sales and inventory data using Web technology.
Because the system replenishes inventory with lightning speed, Wal-Mart does not need to
spend much money on maintaining large inventories of goods in its own warehouses. The
system also enables Wal-Mart to adjust purchases of store items to meet customer demands.
By using systems to keep operating costs low.

Wal-Mart's continuous replenishment system is also an example of an efficient customer

response system. An efficient customer response system directly links consumer behavior to
distribution and production and supply chains. Wal-Mart's continuous replenishment system
provides such an efficient customer response.

New Products, Services, and Business Models

Today's music industry is vastly different from the industry in 2000. Apple Inc. transformed
an old business model of music distribution based on vinyl records, tapes, and CDs into an
online, legal distribution model based on its own iPod technology platform. Together with
this is product differentiation. Use information systems to enable new products and services,
or greatly change the customer convenience in using your existing products and services. For
instance, Google continuously introduces new and unique search services on its Web site,
such as Google Maps. By purchasing PayPal, an electronic payment system, in 2003, eBay
made it much easier for customers to pay sellers and expanded use of its auction marketplace.
Manufacturers and retailers are using information systems to create products and services that
are customized and personalized to fit the precise specifications of individual customers.

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Lands' End customers can use its Web site to order jeans, dress pants, chino pants, and shirts
custom-tailored to their own specifications. Customers enter their measurements into a form
on the Web site, which then transmits each customer's specifications over a network to a
computer that develops an electronic made-to-measure pattern for that customer. The
individual patterns are then transmitted electronically to a manufacturing plant, where they
are used to drive fabric-cutting equipment. There are almost no extra production costs
because the process does not require additional warehousing, production overruns, and
inventories, and the cost to the customer is only slightly higher than that of a mass-produced
garment. Fourteen percent of Lands' End shirt and pants sales are now customized. This
ability to offer individually tailored products or services using the same production resources
as mass production is called mass customization.

Customer and Supplier Intimacy

Customer and supplier intimacy leads to the customers generally respond by returning and
purchasing more and suppliers providing vital inputs at relatively lower costs. The Mandarin
Oriental in Manhattan and other high-end hotels exemplify the use of information systems
and technologies to achieve customer intimacy. These hotels use computers to keep track of
guests' preferences, such as their preferred room temperature, check-in time, frequently dialed
telephone numbers, and television programs, and store this data in a giant data repository.

Individual rooms in the hotels are networked to a central network server computer so that
they can be remotely monitored or controlled. When a customer arrives at one of these hotels,
the system automatically changes the room conditions, such as dimming the lights, setting the
room temperature, or selecting appropriate music, based on the customer's digital profile. So
they can give these guests exactly what they want. The hotels also analyze their customer
data to identify their best customers and to develop individualized marketing campaigns
based on customers' preferences.

Also, IT could be used strategically to focus on market niche. This is the use information
systems to enable a specific market focus, and serve this narrow target market better than
competitors. Information systems support this strategy by producing and analyzing data for
finely tuned sales and marketing techniques. Information systems enable companies to
analyze customer buying patterns, tastes, and preferences closely so that they efficiently pitch
advertising and marketing campaigns to smaller and smaller target markets. The data come
from a range of sources-credit card transactions, demographic data, purchase data from
checkout counter scanners at supermarkets and retail stores, and data collected when people
access and interact with Web sites. Sophisticated software tools find patterns in these large
pools of data and infer rules from them to guide decision making.

In addition, information systems could be used to tighten linkages with suppliers and develop
intimacy with customers. Chrysler Corporation uses information systems to facilitate direct
access from suppliers to production schedules, and even permit suppliers to decide how and
when to ship suppliers to Chrysler factories. This allows suppliers more lead time in
producing goods. On the customer side, Amazon.com keeps track of user preferences for
book and CD purchases, and can recommend titles purchased by others to its customers.

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Strong linkages to customers and suppliers increase switching costs (the cost of switching
from one product to a competing product), and loyalty to your firm.

The Internet's impact on suppliers is mixed. On the one hand, buyers can find alternative
suppliers and compare prices more easily, reducing the supplier's bargaining power. On the
other hand, as companies use the Internet to integrate their supply chain and join digital
exchanges, participating suppliers will prosper by locking in customers and increasing
switching costs.

Improved Decision Making

With information systems and technologies it possible for managers to get and use real-time
data from the marketplace when making decisions. This leads to improved decisions. For
instance, Verizon Corporation, one of the largest regional Bell operating companies in the
United States, uses a Web-based digital dashboard to provide managers with precise real-time
information on customer complaints; network performance for each locality served, and line
outages or storm-damaged lines. (A Digital Dashboard is an electronic interface that
aggregates and visualizes data from multiple sources, such as databases, locally hosted files,
and web services. It is an electronic tracking tool used to build an interactive, visual
representation of data from a host of sources including databases, CRM- and ERP data or
other web services to monitor important business metrics and overall company's
performance. Dashboards allow you to monitor your business performance by displaying
historical trends, actionable data, and real-time information.) Using this information,
managers can immediately allocate repair resources to affected areas, inform consumers of
repair efforts, and restore service fast.

Note
A company may focus on one of these strategies or pursue several of them simultaneously.
For example, Dell Computer tries to emphasize low cost as well as the ability to customize its
personal computers.

Note on the Internet and competition

Porter concludes that the overall impact of the Internet is to increase competition, which
negatively impacts profitability. According to Porter, "The great paradox of the Internet is
that it’s very benefits - (making information widely available; reducing the difficulty of
purchasing, marketing, and distribution; allowing buyers and sellers to find and transact
business with one another more easily) - also make it more difficult for companies to capture
those benefits as profits".

The Internet has nearly destroyed some industries and has severely threatened more. For
instance, the printed encyclopedia industry and the travel agency industry have been nearly
decimated by the availability of substitutes over the Internet. The Internet has also created
entirely new markets and formed the basis for thousands of new businesses. The Internet has
enabled new products and services, new business models, and new industries to spring up
every day, from eBay and Amazon.com to iTunes and Google. In this sense, the Internet is
"transforming" entire industries, forcing firms to change how they do business. Because of

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the Internet, the traditional competitive forces are still at work, but competitive rivalry has
become much more intense. Internet technology is based on universal standards that any
company can use, making it easy for rivals to compete on price alone and for new
competitors to enter the market.

The visibility of Internet applications on the Web makes proprietary systems more difficult to
keep secret, reducing differences among competitors. Because information is available to
everyone, the Internet raises the bargaining power of customers, who can quickly find the
lowest-cost provider on the Web. Profits have been dampened. Some industries, such as the
travel industry and the financial services industry, have been more impacted than others.

The Internet increases the threat of new competitors. First, the Internet sharply reduces
traditional barriers to entry, such as the need for a sales force or a physical storefront to sell
goods and services. All a competitor needs to do is set up a Web site. This threat is especially
acute in industries that perform an intermediation role as well as industries in which the
primary product or service is digital. Second, the geographical reach of the. Internet enables
distant competitors to bring competition into the local market, or even an indirect competitor
to compete more directly with an existing firm.

However, contrary to Porter's somewhat negative assessment, the Internet also creates new
opportunities for building brands and building very large and loyal customer bases that are
willing to pay a premium for the brand, such as Yahoo!, eBay, Google and Amazon.com. In
addition, as with all IT-enabled business initiatives, some firms are far better at using the
Internet than other firms are and this creates new strategic opportunities for the successful
firms.
Developing the international information systems
The basic strategy to follow when building an international system is to understand the global
environment in which your firm is operating and to develop strategy. After you have
developed a strategy, consider how to structure your organization so it can pursue the strategy.
This covers how division of labor across a global environment will be accomplished, determining
where production, administration, accounting, marketing, and human resource functions will
be located, and who will handle the systems function etc. Then the technology platform will be
considered. With this, an appropriate international information systems infrastructure capable
of achieving corporate goals would be developed.

Challenges
Different cultures produce different political regimes. Among the different countries of the
world, there are different laws governing the movement of information, information privacy of
citizens, origins of software and hardware in systems, and radio and satellite telecommunications.
There is variation in hours of business and the terms of business trade across political cultures.

The different legal regimes complicate global business and must be considered when building
global systems. For instance, European countries have very strict laws concerning transborder
data flow and privacy.

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Cultural and political differences profoundly affect organizations' standard operating
procedures. A host of specific barriers arise from the general cultural differences—everything
from different reliability of phone networks to the shortage of skilled consultants.

National laws and traditions have created disparate accounting practices in various countries,
which impact the ways profits and losses are analyzed. German companies generally do not
recognize the profit from a venture until the project is completely finished and they have been
paid. Conversely, British firms begin posting profits before a project is completed when they are
reasonably certain they will get the money.

Cultural differences can also affect the way organizations use information technology. For
example, Japanese firms fax extensively but have been reluctant to take advantage of the
capabilities of e-mail, perhaps as they view e-mail as poorly suited for much intragroup
communication and for depiction of the complex symbols used in their written language.

Language is a big barrier. Although English has become a kind of standard business
language, it may not be so throughout the organizational ranks. Software may have to be built
with local language interfaces before a new information system can be successfully
implemented.

These inhibiting factors must be taken into account when designing and building an
international infrastructure for your business.

GLOBAL STRATEGIES AND BUSINESS ORGANIZATION

Four main global strategies form the basis for global firms' organizational structure. These
are domestic exporter, multinational, franchiser, and transnational. Each of these strategies is
pursued with a specific business organizational structure.

The domestic exporter strategy is characterized by heavy centralization of corporate activities

in the home country of origin. Production, finance/accounting, sales/marketing, human re-
sources, and strategic management are set up to optimize resources in the home country.
International sales are sometimes dispersed using agency agreements or subsidiaries, but even
here foreign marketing is totally reliant on the domestic home base for marketing themes and
strategies. Caterpillar Corporation and other heavy capital-equipment manufacturers fall into
this category of firm.

The multinational strategy concentrates financial management and control from a central
home base, and decentralizes production, sales, and marketing operations to units in other
countries. The products and services on sale in different countries are adapted to suit local
market conditions. Many financial service firms, along with a host of manufacturers such as
General Motors, DaimlerChrysler, and Intel, fit this pattern.

For franchisers, the product is created, designed, financed, and initially produced in the home
country, but for product-specific reasons must rely heavily on foreign personnel for further
production, marketing, and human resources. This could be because the product must be
produced locally (it is perishable). In this case, extensive coordination and dispersion of
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production, local marketing, and local recruitment of personnel are required.

Transnational firms are the stateless, truly globally managed firms that may represent a larger
part of international business in the future. Transnational firms have no single national
headquarters but instead have many regional headquarters and perhaps a world headquarters.
In a transnational strategy, nearly all the value-adding activities are managed from a global
perspective without reference to national borders, optimizing sources of supply and demand
wherever they appear, and taking advantage of any local competitive advantages.

The governance of these firms has been likened to a federal structure in which there is a
strong central management core of decision making, but considerable dispersal of power and
financial muscle throughout the global divisions.

Information technology and improvements in global telecommunications are giving

international firms more flexibility to shape their global strategies.

Global systems to fit the strategy

The configuration, management, and development of systems tend to follow the global strat-
egy chosen. We can have four types of systems configuration.

Centralized systems are those in which systems development and operation occur totally at
the domestic home base. Domestic exporters tend to have highly centralized systems in which
a single domestic systems development staff develops worldwide applications.

Duplicated systems are those in which development occurs at the home base but operations
are handed over to autonomous units in foreign locations. This is found with franchisers. Like
the products they sell, franchisers develop a single system usually at the home base and then
replicate it around the world. Each unit, no matter where it is located, has identical
applications.

Decentralized systems are those in which each foreign unit designs its own unique solutions
and systems. This is found with multinationals. Here foreign units devise their own systems
solutions based on local needs with few if any applications in common with headquarters (the
exceptions being financial reporting and some telecommunications applications).

Networked systems are those in which systems development and operations occur in an inte-
grated and coordinated fashion across all units. This is with transnational. Networked systems
are those in which there is a solid, singular global environment for developing and operating
systems. This usually presupposes a powerful telecommunications backbone, a culture of
shared applications development, and a shared management culture that crosses cultural
barriers. The networked systems structure is the most apparent in financial services where the
homogeneity of the product—money and money instruments—seems to overcome cultural
barriers.

Note:
As you watch videos:
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 Business-IT Alignment is a discipline that matches IT strategy with business strategy with
the goal of maximizing value created by the enterprise.
 Business functions create value with the help of support functions
 IT function does not create value it supports value creation
 Therefore, every IT investment must be in support of business objective(s)
 Business IT Alignment is about using information technology (IT) effectively to achieve
the desired situation of an organization. It can be used to achieve objectives, for instance
to improve financial performance or market position.

LINKS (read/watch and make short notes)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoh-jXBfOEU -How to Align your IT Strategy with your Business Goals:
Mike Moran - Affiliated Resource Group
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23umK1pBZy8 -Business-IT Strategy Alignment
https://www.scnsoft.com/blog/business-it-alignment-challenges-and-rewards - Business-IT alignment:
Challenges and rewards
https://www.valuebasedmanagement.net/methods_venkatraman_strategic_alignment.html - aligning business
and IT strategy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkgFoL-1AiA - Business Strategy and Information Technology
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XG2zVbvg1UM - Business Strategy and Information Technology (II)

Digital Dashboard: Definition and 15 Key Examples - Qlik

https://www.qlik.com › dashboard-examples › digital-das...

https://guidingmetrics.com/benefits-of-metrics/6-benefits-to-building-your-dashboard-today/

https://mvixdigitalsignage.com/blog/digital-dashboards-types-factors-design-benefits-and-best-practices/

https://www.anodot.com/blog/limitations-of-dashboards/

REFERENCES:
Downes, L, Mui, C (1998): Unleashing the killer app digital strategies for market dominance Harvard Business
School Press

Evans P, Wurster T (2000): Blown to bits: How the new economics of Information transforms strategy Harvard
Business School Press

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