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Wednesday, 16 June 2010
2:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.
Nicholas Carr surged to prominence in 2003 with the publication of his controversial and celebrated Harvard Business Review article titled "IT Doesn't Matter." The piece ignited a worldwide debate on the strategic value of information technology and made Carr one of the business world's most significant voices.
Now, with the publication of his follow-up book, Does IT Matter? Information Technology and the Corrosion of Competitive Advantage, Carr has renewed and deepened the debate. According to Carr, IT doesn't matter, at least not in the way it once did. Information technology no longer provides the competitive edge necessary for business success; indeed, as it has grown more powerful and more pervasive, IT's strategic relevance has declined from a proprietary technology used by companies to gain an edge into an infrastructural technology shared by all competitors.
As Carr points out, when everybody has the same competitive advantage, there's no longer any advantage. He recommends that business leaders look in new places for competitive advantage and manage IT with a stress on cost control and risk management over innovation and investment.
Carr authors a technology column for BusinessWeek Online and has written more than a dozen articles and interviews for Harvard Business Review, where he has also served in several top editorial positions. He has also written for the Financial Times, MIT Sloan Management Review, Wired, Boston Globe, and Business 2.0 and writes a monthly column for the Industry Standard. He has also edited and contributed to several books.
Carr has spoken at many business forums and has appeared as a business commentator on CNN, CNBC, and other cable news networks. Before joining HBR's editorial staff, he was a principal at Mercer Management Consulting.
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