My Personal Thoughts on Research and Teaching:
Today technology enables
organizations to transform
business, business processes,
the nature of work, markets and
employee and customer
experiences. The technology is
changing entire industries like
retail stock brokering and the
securities markets. It has the
potential to make dramatic
improvements in the quality of
health care delivery with
simultaneous reductions in cost.
IT is the basis for many new
industries and business models,
like the search engine and
portal. The academic
Information Systems field needs
to concentrate on studying these
transformations rather than
narrow topics only of interest
to a small group of faculty.
We also need to frame our
courses and teaching around the
exciting transformational nature
of the technology. The skills
that a business student needs
today include an understanding
of the capabilities of
information technology and a
deep knowledge of business
processes and models. With this
preparation, the student can
apply the technology to making
major improvements in the way
organizations operate.
The objective is to innovate and
generate ideas for existing and
new business models. Managers
have to provide guidance in
bringing innovative ideas to the
marketplace, and they have to
make decisions about the
features of the innovation
including marketing and funding
development. Think of a system
like OnStar which links drivers
to a central service center
using GPS technology and
satellite communications.
Managers at this GM subsidiary
took a giant risk creating this
system, and made a large number
of decisions in bringing it to
market.
The study of information systems
in a business school, then, is
not about programming or the
construction of a web site. It
is about understanding business
and technology, and finding ways
to apply IT to creating new and
more effective organizations.