Abstract
Living as we do in the Information Age, an immense amount of information is readily available through high-powered workstations, laptop computers, Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), and other smart devices, connected through high-bandwidth data communication networks, including the Internet, Wide Area Networks (WANs), Local Area Networks (LANs), and upcoming Personal Area Networks (PANs). Evolving technologies are directly changing the speed and shape of competition and how business is done, rewriting the rules of the game in industry after industry. The rate of change in today’s business environment has pushed the need for technologies and acceptance of them to a continuously accelerating pace. The new technologies are enabling organizations to be flatter, networked, and more flexible, redefining our notions about everything from R&D to distribution, and in the processes making possible smarter, more customized products and services. As a result of these forces, organizations spend enormous sums of money on computer hardware, software, communication networks, databases, and specialized personnel, collectively known as Information Technology (IT). Leading-edge companies all over the world in all industries have increased their overall IT expenditures by double-figure percentages annually. Many organizations currently observe that up to 50 percent of their total capital expenditure is for IT.