IT Investment Strategy And IT Infrastructure Services

Abstract

Organizations invest in information technology infrastructure for a variety of reasons. One dimension describing the investment strategy is the intention of achieving cost savings versus the intention to remain flexible and responsive to the marketplace. Of interest is the relationship between this cost-flexibility dimension and the extent to which services are provided as part of the firmwide infrastructure. A survey of CIOs reveals that organizations emphasizing cost tend to have less investment in firmwide infrastructure across a breadth of service types than those promoting flexibility. This implies that organizations pursuing a flexible strategy will provide a broader base of services that are common to all groups within the organization. Firms using a cost-based strategy tend to provide less infrastructure leaving many of the services incomplete or up to individual business units within the organization.