Competing with IT: The role of shared IT-business understanding

The conditions, which leads some IT using firms to get more competitive advantage than others, has been explored along with discussing IT business value and IT competitive advantage on the basis of resource-based view (RBV). It has been found that the key IT features that affects performance depends on Shared IT-Business understanding, which is the level of shared domain knowledge and common understanding between the IT and the line managers related to how IT can be used for performance improvement of a particular process. Competitive advantage depends on unique firm specific resources, which are valuable, rare, and costly to imitate and they can be the factor for sustained competitive advantage. Increased IT literacy in business professionals and increased business literacy among IS professionals are a key feature to enhanced growth. IT managers also need to identify the key assets, abilities, strengths, and weaknesses of the firm to rise in a competitive world.