Do Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) really represent a competitive advantage for the business ? Have ICT become commodities? The debate on the commoditization of ICT and the future of the industry that will employ thousands of highly qualified people.
The article "IT Doesn't Matter" published by Nicholas Carr recently brought to the fore the debate on whether Information and Communication Technologies have become a commodity.
In his article, Nicholas Carr argues that just as happened with the railroad or electric power in its first stage of development, those who could access these so-called infrastructure technologies could achieve significant competitive advantages. But as the availability of these technologies increases and the cost decreases, they become current factors of production, or in economic terms “Commodities”, and whose service is marketed under the “utilities” model.
Information: the most important value
In his controversial article Carr ensures that ICTs are incapable of generating long-term competitive advantages and that companies can differentiate themselves thanks to them.
It considers ICTs as infrastructure technology, that is, they are used to process, store and transport information digitally. These tangible resources are easy to copy and to acquire, in such a way that they could be considered of little strategic value. However, it is also known that ICT also provide other intangible resources that are difficult to copy and hardly available in the market, such as the generation of knowledge, the creation of synergies, the management of know-how or the transformation of business processes.
Companies that invest in ICT acquire tangible resources, but when they put them to work they have the possibility of generating intangible resources that can be the result of significant competitive advantages.
Therefore, whether ICTs can generate competitive advantages will depend on the use made of the information that is the exclusive property of each company. It will depend on the ability to develop novel uses of the information. It will depend on the one who is best interrelated, enhancing information flows with suppliers, customers, partners and employees.
The specific weight of computer systems and programs where ICTs were traditionally focused have shifted towards a more modern vision, where the people behind each computer and in the information generated through relationships have become more important. with other employees and / or third parties.
Proprietary technology vs. infrastructure
Today there is no doubt about the potential that ICTs have to transform the economy and society in general (information society).
However, this revolutionary nature of technology has not only been characteristic of ICT. In the past, electricity, for example, became revolutionary for society when it ceased to be a proprietary technology, used only by a few, and instead became available everywhere (ubiquitous) and shared by all. It became an infrastructure. That is, for companies it becomes a cost to be managed rather than taking advantage of an opportunity over competitors.
Only in the early stages of a new technology, and only for the few companies that find a proprietary use for it, can they be considered to have a competitive advantage, lasting for a longer or shorter time.
Nicholas Carr does not lack arguments in his article in light of the significant decrease in the cost of Hardware and the 4 degrees of freedom that the world of Open Source and Free Software (GPL license) offers us. The freedom to run the program for any purpose. The freedom to study how the program works and adapt it to your needs. The freedom to redistribute copies. And the freedom to improve the program and release your improvements to the public for the benefit of the entire community.
Even the impressive avalanche with which the technical press is flooded every day on the new technologies that are going to hit the market, such as wireless devices, Grid, Web Service, Radio Frequency identity labels, smart clothes and appliances, they are worth considering. But the question is whether they will be proprietary technologies or open infrastructures.
The reuse of code, taking advantage of what others have already done and the ease of copying by competitors, have completely revolutionized ICT. This is causing technology companies to rethink their business model from selling licenses to offering services with highly qualified personnel and a multidisciplinary team.
The commercialization of ICT
Although Hardware tends to be a commodity over time, software, however, like music or poetry, has great potential for creativity, innovation and adaptability.
But what matters in this highly dynamic environment is not whether a programmer from anywhere in the world releases revolutionary new code, but how quickly it is available and can be adopted by the rest of the community to its advantage.
The rest of commodities such as electricity, its production process resides in the strong investment in technological infrastructures that only governments and large companies can carry out.
On the contrary, ICTs as services are provided by a large number of providers, with few highly qualified and multidisciplinary personnel, highly focused on the client and the type of technology and where the technological power resides in the knowledge and experience acquired (the brain of the team, in people) more than in the production systems and in the Hardware part of the infrastructures.
Posted in www.hipermarketing.com
