Company executives regularly speak about the ‘strategic value’ of IT and how they can use IT to
increase their competitive advantages.
Many companies have even attempted to ‘digitize’ their business models by using IT. Mr. Carr believes that this thinking is based upon an assumption that “as IT’s potency and ubiquity…[increases], so too has its strategic value.” Mr. Carr believes that this is a faulty
point of view. What makes this assumption wrong, in Mr. Carr’s opinion, is that “what makes a resource truly strategic—what gives it the capacity to be the basis for a sustained competitive advantage—is not ubiquity but scarcity.” For a large portion of companies in the world (and just about all companies in this country) core IT functions (data storage, data processing, and data transport) have become readily available and affordable. IT has become simply a cost of doing business that “must be paid by all but provide distinction to none.”