Product Description

Imagine thinking about your company's information technology in the same way that you think about its investment portfolio: as a bundle of assets that--when managed right--will generate revenues and savings. Here's just such a framework for leveraging IT (technology, networks, data, and software)--one that enables business managers to make the important decisions about the potentially confounding mix of high-technology that influences near- and long-term planning, affects the ability to support customers, and dictates the flow of daily operations. Drawing upon their rigorous research with more than 100 top multinationals, the authors present a rich and varied range of examples of IT investment strategies that have reaped rewards for firms such as Citibank, Honda, Johnson & Johnson, Ralston Purina, the Development Bank of Singapore, and Telstra. This hands-on resource, compete with benchmarks and case studies, creates the common ground where both management and IT can meet, communicate their goals, and agree on the best plan for getting there.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #388129 in Books
• Published on: 1998-06-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 291 pages

About the Author
Peter Weill is Foundation Chair of Management (information systems) and director of the Centre for Management of Information Technology at Melbourne Business School.

Customer Reviews

A Two Hi-Liter Book
Super book! This book adds value to something most companies are yet to figure out they have or need--an IT infrastructure. The book makes a case that the infrastructure is the key to competitive edge. Sold! I believe it. Read this book and you'll also be convinced.

Regrettably, some of the readers won't "get it" hence the competitive edge. If you don't get, check your altitude. You may be flying too low. In my view, infrastructure only looks like infrastructure from on high. Think end to end. The secret is to gain enough altitude to see it. Believe me--whether you see it or not--it's there and costing you big bucks! So soar! Gain altitude until you see the infrastructure. Let this book be the wind beneath your wings.

Don't just take Weill and Broadbent's word for it. What is your favorite IT guru saying about this subject?

You will undoubtedly conclude that this book is on target and on the money! Read it. Let it soak in. Then start Leveraging the New Infrastructure.

Great reference on driving forces for change
This book is not on technical infrastructure. The views and arguments goes for data archticture ( which might be defined as part of infrastructure) and other coordinated strategic approaches as well. The approach with change contexts and lists of business drivers for different company cultures is worth adding to your basic reference frame for mgmt discussions / architecture advocating.

An interesting new idea - but repeated over and over
The premise of this work provides a very interesting and easily recallable way of thinking of IT resources - a pyramid structure the breaks down IT into 4 major areas. The only problem is that the idea is repeated ad nauseum. There are a few interesting case studies, but the 'core ideas' could have been stated in about 1/3 the pages.