It Doesn't Matter

IT Doesn’t Matter

by Nicholas G. Carr

Reprint r0305b

May 2003

HBR Case Study Leadership Development: Perk or Priority?

Idalene F Kesner .

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HBR at Large IT Doesn’t Matter

Nicholas G. Carr

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Is Silence Killing Your Company?

Leslie Perlow and Stephanie Williams

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Global Gamesmanship

Ian C. MacMillan, Alexander B. van Putten, and Rita Gunther McGrath

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The High Cost of Accurate Knowledge

Kathleen M. Sutcliffe and Klaus Weber

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Hedging Customers

Ravi Dhar and Rashi Glazer

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The Nonprofit Sector’s $100 Billion Opportunity

Bill Bradley, Paul Jansen, and Les Silverman

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Best Practice Diamonds in the Data Mine

Gary Loveman

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Frontiers Don’t Trust Your Gut

Eric Bonabeau

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H B R AT L A R G E

Doesn’t Matter

by Nicholas G. Carr As information technology’s power and ubiquity have grown, its strategic importance has diminished. The way you approach IT investment and management will need to change dramatically.

IT

I

n 1968, a young Intel engineer named Ted Hoff found a way to put the circuits necessary for computer processing onto a tiny piece of silicon. His invention of the microprocessor spurred a series of technological breakthroughs – desktop computers, local and wide area networks, enterprise software, and the Internet – that have transformed the business world. Today, no one would dispute that information technology has become the backbone of commerce. It underpins the operations of individual companies, ties together far-flung supply chains, and, increasingly, links businesses to the customers they serve. Hardly a dollar or a euro changes hands anymore without the aid of computer systems. As IT’s power and presence have expanded, companies have come to view it as a resource ever more critical to their

success, a fact clearly reflected in their spending habits. In 1965, according to a study by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of...