The Link among Information Technology, Business Models, and Strategic Breakthroughs: Examples from Amazon, Dell, and eBay

Chris Kimble () and Isabelle Bourdon ()
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Isabelle Bourdon: CREGOR - Centre de Recherche sur la Gestion des Organisations - UM2 - Université Montpellier 2 - Sciences et Techniques, MRM - Montpellier Research in Management - UM1 - Université Montpellier 1 - UPVM - Université Paul-Valéry - Montpellier 3 - UM2 - Université Montpellier 2 - Sciences et Techniques - UPVD - Université de Perpignan Via Domitia - Groupe Sup de Co Montpellier (GSCM) - Montpellier Business School

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Abstract: It is widely accepted that information technology (IT) plays a central role in creating and maintaining a firm's competitive advantage. When discussions turn to strategic breakthroughs—innovations that are so fundamental that they disrupt the way an existing market operates—however, the role played by IT appears less clear-cut. The experiences of three well-known companies—Amazon, Dell, and eBay—show that the way that IT was used to gain a more intimate knowledge of the customer formed a common component of each of their business models. Those companies' experiences also indicate that the task of creating the type of radically different business model needed to create a strategic breakthrough might be easier to achieve in a new organization, unencumbered by the baggage of the past, than it is in an established organization with a preexisting business culture and an established way of doing things.

Keywords: business model; amazon; e-bay; dell (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013-11
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Published in Global Business and Organizational Excellence, 2013, 33 (1), pp.58-68. ⟨10.1002/joe.21523⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-01260968

DOI: 10.1002/joe.21523

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