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This book is dedicated to business leaders who want go deeper
into the provocative ideas asserted in the "IT Doesn't
Matter" article in the Harvard Business Review. IT's
not about the last 50 years, IT's about the next 50 years.
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A torrent of debate ensued in the weeks following Harvard
Business Review's May 2003 publication of Nicholas Carr's
article, "IT Doesn't Matter." Numerous responses
and rebuttals began pouring in from around the world, including
those from the likes of Bill Gates, Michael Dell, and just
about every business and technology publication on the planet,
even daily newspapers.
Carr makes several accurate observations that touched a nerve
in the IT industry, eliciting some sharp responses that prompted
eWEEK's John Taschek to write, "Industry partisans who
have read it but can't accept much of it as true are either
awash in denial or so obsessed with self-preservation that
they are blinded by the facts."
By writing the article, Carr has rendered a great service
to the IT industry--a wake-up call. We thank him for that,
and we thank the many who have stepped up and entered the
debate (see Appendix). Their insights and his have helped
us to connect the dots in order to provide a more complete
picture of the role of information technology in business.
For although Nicholas Carr certainly created a stir, his analysis
leaps from assertions about the IT industry to drawing conclusions
about the business use of IT as an enabler of competitive
advantage. In consequence, he is led to prescriptions that
focus on the past--the first fifty years of the business and
IT relationship--and he has missed the breakthrough that sets
the stage for the next fifty years.
So, in the spirit of HBR Editor Thomas A. Stewart when he
wrote, "Our ideal reader wants give-and-take, argument
and counter-argument, the better to understand the issues,"
this book's critical analysis of Carr's thesis sets the record
straight. It explains the breakthrough of business process
management, which is the epicenter of IT going forward, and
provides a message that is both urgent and critical for business
leaders caught up in the great IT backlash from the Wall Street-driven
overspend of the go-go 1990s.
Howard Smith
Peter Fingar
June 2003
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