The E-world, information and competitive advantage: what works?

Abstract

The Author’s theme of company competitiveness and the role played by information and communications technologies (ICT) in its maximization is continued with a review of corporate uses of Internet and intranet technology. Internet technology is used for accessing all the information on the Web, the invisible Web, electronic mail (email), instant messaging, newsgroups, chat rooms, online message boards, communities of practice, virtual communities, intranets, extranets, portals, vortals, industrynets and auctions. The Internet has had a profound effect on organizations and business activity by overcoming geographic boundaries and making information more easily available and in larger quantities to a wider potential customer base. The importance of acknowledging the inability of the Internet alone to create a competitive advantage is stressed, along with need to seek to create such advantages by using the Internet to do things differently, through innovation or by inventive pricing. The things that Internet technology enables organizations to do which they could not do easily before include: broadcasting information internally and externally; making information much more easily available; messaging; increasing speed of delivery; direct customer contact; selling; buying; ordering; educating; exchanging information and views; monitoring competitors and the marketplace; graphics/pictures; improving customer service and value; analyzing customer needs; reaching new markets; and improving choice.