Does IT kill competition?

Andrew Mcafee’s article of the effects of IT on competition and businesses raises some interesting points .

http://blog.hbs.edu/faculty/amcafee/index.php/faculty_amcafee_v3/curiouser_and_curiouser/

His conclusion is technology isn’t a leveller between businesses – instead it creats a greater concentration of market power.

I wonder if those results Andrew cites are biased because of the economic boom and easy credit we recently been through; start ups were bought out by cashed up bigger players and that’s why we saw a concentration of businesses.

Regardless of the reasons, there’s a caveat for the bigger players; Andrew’s view is this because “good ideas and good execution separate winners from losers” and technology is what allows these good ideas to spread in a well run company.

This week’s collapse of Wedgwood is a good example of when a company’s culture stifles ideas and innovation. The New York Times has an excellent description of what went wrong and Seth Godin has some wise comments on the NYT strory.

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By Paul Wallbank

Paul Wallbank is a speaker and writer charting how technology is changing society and business. Paul has four regular technology advice radio programs on ABC, a weekly column on the smartcompany.com.au website and has published seven books.

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