Publications
Publications
- January 2004
- HBS Case Collection
Beyond the IT Monolith
By: Marco Iansiti and Gregg Rotenberg
Abstract
Leading companies are employing a radical new approach to IT--an approach that points the way to a new model of software architecture and deployment. These companies' successes seem to indicate that the problems IT critics have correctly identified are not, in fact, signs of the end of IT's importance. Rather, they are motivators for the emergence of a fundamentally different approach to IT, one that will enable companies to tackle the vast array of business processes that process automation efforts to date have largely ignored. They can do so in a way that will, sustain and enhance unique competitive advantages, rather than erode them through homogenization. Achieving this, however, will require companies to shift their IT strategies and solution sets. Describes observations from several firms that provide new insights into the application of software to the automation of business processes.
Keywords
Citation
Iansiti, Marco, and Gregg Rotenberg. "Beyond the IT Monolith." Harvard Business School Background Note 604-070, January 2004.