IT Strategy - When to invest in IT (and when NOT to)
Insurance companies, banks, retailers - the common theme among all these sectors is the rapid scale of changes in the competitive landscape. If you own a small business fulfilling the grocery needs of the consumers in a lovely neighborhood of Hoffman Estates in Illinois, your business is disrupted. Online retailers can deliver groceries to your customers within a day or two and possibly at a lower price than you. Traditional banks serving local consumers can no longer limit their competitive research to their local areas. Insurance companies have to deal with never ending regulatory requirements. The competition has gone global and can come from all corners. These disruptions mean companies have to continually update their target market segment, understand the evolving needs of the consumer, translate his/her needs into desired features, develop products and services, modify/build new core competencies, assess their global competition, keep their costs down, develop the value proposi...