Your Next IT Strategy

Research-Technology Management, Jan-Feb, 2002

Your Next IT Strategy; John Hagel III and John Seely Brown; Harvard Business Review, Oct. 2001, pp. 105-113.

Asserting that the age of proprietary information systems is coming to an end, the authors see "a whole new approach to corporate information systems" emerging. With these so-called Web services, companies will buy their information technologies as services provided over the Interact. Hagel, who is chief strategy officer of 12 Entrepreneuring and Brown, who is the company's chief innovation officer while continuing as Xerox chief scientist, guide executives through this new IT strategy. They explain what the Web services architecture is, how it differs from traditional IT architecture, and why it will provide significant cost savings to businesses while creating new opportunities for growth. They lay out a step-by-step approach for adopting the new architecture, drawing upon the experience of companies such as Merrill Lynch, General Motors, and Dell Computer that are already making the transition.

As the new architecture matures, the distinction between users and suppliers of Web services will fade, they write. The location of particular capabilities and applications will become less important than executives' ability to discover and orchestrate these capabilities so as to deliver greater value to customers.