Several authors have gone beyond examining the value of IT in reducing a firm's costs and/or
increasing its revenues to suggest ways that IT can be a source of sustained competitive
advantage. Perhaps the most important of these efforts began with Clemons (1986) and focuses on the role of IT-based customer switching costs as a source of sustained competitive advantage for firms seliing IT appiications. This set of ideas has come to be known as the "create-capture-keep" paradigm