INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND BUSINESS STRATEGY: THE CASE OF AN INTEGRATED LIBRARY

Abstract

The information technology (IT) is becoming increasingly essential to the strategies of the companies so that makes if necessary to study how to align both to contribute to an organization competitive advantage. In this sense the research notes the impact of IT strategies and pointing out the existing competitive strategies in an integrated library system, indicating the IT tools and applications used by the same, identifying which areas of activity in which IT provides competitive advantage in the company and setting in which quadrant of the strategic grid of McFarlan is computed the system studied. Data were collected with interviews and analysis of information publicized. It was also observed that the strategically usage of IT in the value chain model of Porter, is basically concentrated in Post-Sales and Services under-utilizating the information obtained by it. It was also found various activities generating value in the scope of primary activities and a strong dependence of the University administration for them secondary’s activities. Finally, describing their market threatens of the system of libraries across the five Porter's competitive strengths and noted that the competitive strategy used is the improve of the internal efficiency, concluding then that the organization has used tools and applications of IT in order to be able to distinguish themselves from their competitors, creating competitive advantage for the university.