

Technology investments have not paid off in corporate profits - muhamm
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/19/tech-payoff-for-companies-remains-elusive-study-finds/

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maigret
OK, so maybe I've not understood the point. But isn't one of the biggest goals
of technology to increase productivity? And how can tech be separated from
productivity increase?

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ZeroGravitas
There used to be a joke in economics: "computers are showing up everywhere,
except for the productivity statistics".

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muhamm
This article says that since 1965 the return on assets for US corporations has
dropped by 75% while the biggest additions to the asset base over the same
period have been hardware and software. The first question this seems to raise
is what are we actually measuring when we look at return on assets - does it
take into account the fact that your customers view your brand more positively
because your IT has made your company more responsive to the customer? Because
that change could actually reduce your advertising costs and not end up in any
metric. And the second question is whether most companies are just investing
in technology to automate existing processes or are really reorganizing the
way they do business around their IT so that they can fully leverage all of
the potential benefits of their IT. Of course that takes a degree of
understanding of IT that many older executives simply do not have.

