Assessing the Strategic Value of Information Technology

Seminar paper from the year 2009 in the subject Information Management, grade: 2,0, University of Göttingen (INSTITUT FÜR WIRTSCHAFTSINFORMATIK), course: Informationsmanagement, language: English, abstract: This report aims to take a critical look at an article from Paolo Neirotti and Emilio
Paolucci, both working at the Politecnio di Torino Technical University, Department of
Business and Production Engineering. The article surveys the strategic value of IT on
companies, specifically those who are active in the insurance sector.
Neirotti and Paolucci claim in their work that many IT projects fail, although companies
today are aware of the pitfalls of IT investments and that many IT applications have
become commodities. Obviously IT has a strategic value to firms but they have not
determined how IT management capabilities and IT governance schemes explain
commonalities and differences in their use of IT (Neirotti & Paolucci, 2007, p. 568).
They analyzed the insurance industry in the US and Europe through 20 case studies and
also made an analysis on 30 Italian firms (panel study).
This report is going to throw light on the conclusions made in that article and evaluate
them from a new perspective.