Strategy and tactics

The contagion of both local and global change is generating severe insecurity among managers. That information technology will come to the rescue is a vain hope; on the contrary IT is now seen as just another agent and source of this change. The present use of this technology is inappropriate for coping with this situation. Without coherent ways of thinking about the place of information systems in respect of the perpetual changes around them, companies can no longer place their faith in technological solutions. For in doing so, they surrender responsibility for IT to technocrats, who all too often indulge their fascination for irrelevant technology, without considering the wider needs of the organization. The necessary way of thinking must not be just a token tribute to philosophical problems and questions of meaning. The present emphasis on simple functional issues and short term advantages of IT, must be balanced against the application of information technology both to simplify and to enhance a company’s long term competitive position in the light of profound uncertainty and complexity. But how successful are these attempts to introduce information technology? We can be sure that the integration of an IT strategy with a corporate strategy requires a sensitivity to issues far broader than the merely technological: ‘The IT tail must not wag the organization dog’.