6.12 Management Issues: Using IS to Achieve ...


The first step for management reflecting on competitive advantage is to understand the competitive market the organization operates in.
Secondly management should be able to implement the most appropriate, effective and efficient IS to achieve competitive advantage.
Moreover, management has to maintain the competitive advantage through the IS in place.
To achieve this, management should be able to pinpoint the activities in which using IS adds value to the business.
This is achieved through following the Business Value Chain Model.
This is sub-divided into:
primary and support activities.
Benchmarking and best practices should also be considered.

6.12 Management Issues: Using IS to Achieve ...


Primary activities are the core activities of the business entity.
They include: operations, marketing and sales activities.
Support activities are the activities that support the core functions of a business entity.
They include:
general management,
accounting and finance,
human resource management
and technology development.
Benchmarking is evaluating the business performance against previous years’ performance, and also against competitors’ performance.
Best practice is the way by which management make sure that the current IS in place are the most appropriate, being used in the best manner.
In general, IS should aid management to make more informative and studied decisions in the aim of achieving the business goals in general, and competitive advantage in particular.