Business technology organization

This book explains how to manage information technologies in creating business value and competitive advantage. The rapid changes that take place at the technological, organizational and global level have significantly affected the way that companies run their business. During the last decade those companies that have focused on their Information Technology (IT) infrastructure and combined it with innovative ideas or new business models have been successful. It is worth noting that four out of the five more profitable new organizations are worth billions of dollars (e.g. Google, Facebook). This value has been generated in less than a decade with their owners being the youngest and fastest who became billionaires in history. Google and Facebook manage the information that is produced by their information systems in a revolutionary way. They systematically invest on the information that is produced to achieve business value. Information systems’ business value is associated with the impact of IT on parameters such as cost, productivity and organizational performance. To this end, the book aims to analyze and explore the current literature on Information Technology’s business value and the strategic use of information. A main goal of the book is also to provide practitioners with an academic-based framework for managing information for value creation in current business scenarios, characterized both by information growth and new dynamic digital business models. Thus, the book seeks to present a strategic tool for managing information as the core asset in the evolution of businesses toward a Business Technology Organization. v The book initially explores the linkages between strategic performance and IT business value. Then, it introduces the concept of information management and the relation between IT and information management, where information and the mechanisms for delivering it are the glue that hold together the structure of businesses. From an academic point of view, the book explores the normative literature on information management, and discusses three main approaches namely the (a) Information Operation Approach, (b) Information Orientation Approach and the (c) Information Evolution Approach: • Information Operation Approach focuses on how information can be utilized by adding value through customers, reducing costs, minimizing risks, etc., • Information Orientation Approach deals with the capabilities and behaviors associated with effective and proficient use of information and • Information Evolution Approach concentrates at different levels of potential maturity in the business use of information. In this book, the goal of literature analysis is both at academic and managerial level and provides the theoretical foundation for an organizational strategic information approach. The strategic approach encompasses the three above stated approaches in a unified perspective, where IT organization absorptive capacity has a strategic role for business performance. The strategic approach is finally implemented through the Strategic Information Governance Modeling and Assessment (SIGMA) model and methodology that enables organizations to identify and take advantage of IT business value.