Rakuten

Question One

High

Strategic

Strategic

Factory

Factory

Key

A, B & C– period/position - in time

1 & 2 – Transition

Key

A, B & C– period/position - in time

1 & 2 – Transition

C

C

I.T impact on core capabilities

I.T impact on core capabilities

2

2

1

1

B

B

Turnaround

Turnaround

Support

Support

A

A

Low High

I.T impact on core Strategy

I.T impact on core Strategy

From the time Harley Davidson’s conception as a company, around 1903 there was not a lot of technology at the time, only automatic computing engine concepts (Computer Hope), so one would have expected to see the Harley Davidson company occupying a position somewhere to the bottom lower left quadrant of the strategic grid- Position “A” according to the above strategic grid table. It would have been expected that they used a bit of machinery at the time to assemble their motor bikes, but still they heavily relied on human labor to do the bulk work of the construction or manufacturing of the motor bikes. Thus they occupied a position in the support quadrant- where at the time they were not heavily reliable on the execution of Information Technology (I.T) operation, where also small changes or interruptions of I.T would not have a large impact on the organization or company, they would have managed if a machine went down for a couple of days, it’s not something that would have put them out of business at the time and new I.T initiatives were not crucial to the company’s future strategic success (Applegate et al, 2009, pages 424-428). At this time I.T or technology only helped them in converting hard manual labor and automating it, making the process of making a motor cycle, a bit easier, faster and more reliable.

As time went on, and there were improvement in technology, one would have expected to see the company rely more on machinery and I.T to automate a lot of processes during the assembly line...