Governance, Strategy and Value of IS

The advent of social, mobile, analytics, cloud, and internet of things (SMACIT) technologies represent both game-changing opportunities and pose existential and disruptive threats to many organizations, even those who have been successful in operating based on the conventional logic of the pre-digital economy. Combined with conventional digital technologies, these technologies present invaluable opportunities for many organizations to offer new, value propositions so as to better respond to competitive demands. They are also significantly obsoleting the design of conventional business processes, forcing firms to reshape their buyer-supplier and customer relationships and rethink how they create value. For example, sensors on equipment as well as real time data collected via gadgets have captured much big data for predictive analytics and allow organizations to use big data to effectively orchestrate and introduce innovative business models or revolutionize its supply chains. We are consequently in a period when organizations are reevaluating existing IT and organizational strategies and engaging in large scale digital transformations.

These changes are creating new opportunities for value creation, but also raise complex challenges relating to the strategic use, governance and implementation of technology. For example, platform strategies offer a novel way to meet evolving market demands and create value in both the production and the consumption ecosystems. They require organizations to balance the demands of both stability and agility through configuring their inter-organizational relationships and governance mechanisms. As another example, the commercialization of Artifical Intelligence and Machine Learning technologies offers a completely new set of business opportunities, based on the widespread availability of inexpensive high power computing infrastructure on demand. The emerging IoT technology is moving from trials to full deployments to enable the smart management of infrastructures like bridges and roads as well as consumer products like fashion items and personal/home IoT devices. Cloud computing and the consumerization of digital technologies allow ordinary employees with little formal technology training to adopt and implement IS on their own, posing challenges to organizations related to security and complicating both the governance of IT and assessment of value from corporate systems.

Track Co-Chairs
HENG Cheng Suang, Ph.D., National University of Singapore
Christine LEGNER, Ph.D., University of Lausanne
Mani SUBRAMANI, Ph.D., University of Minnesota