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Faster and more flexible information technology can be converted into positive programs to help get and keep customers. It can revitalize the traditional corporate control functions. While the new technology offers managers new options for gathering, organizing, and using data, it opens new horizons for new results. Companies can get constant updates on field operations. Organizations confined by historic accounting or reporting formats can now arrange information however best suits their purposes. Technology has the power to transform the information and control function.

Describes the company's use of information technology to strengthen its position in the elevator sales and service market. Also demonstrates how information technology can be used to better manage and control a large geographically dispersed service organization.

The reduction in the cost of information systems has allowed computers to offer significant competitive advantage. This new technology allows companies to redeploy their assets and rethink strategy to produce gains in market share. Interorganizational systems can change the balance of power between the buyer and the supplier. New products of higher quality and custom design can also be generated by IS technology. Management must change the way it operates. The CEO must insist that the end product of IS planning communicate the true competitive impact of the expenditures involved. Managers should ensure the confidentiality of strategic IS plans and thinking. They should not allow use of simplistic rules to calculate IS expense levels. Interorganizational IS systems have repercussions in other parts of the business; managers must encourage creativity in R&D and must not be too efficient in IS resource allocation.

Managers avoid information system (IS) failure by determining the risk of their projects, singly and as a portfolio, in advance of implementation. Elements of risk include project size, experience with technology, and project structure. Companies should use risk assessment questionnaires to highlight risks and to suggest alternative ways of conceiving and managing the project. A periodic review of the questionnaire reveals major changes. During the feasibility study stage, it is also useful to consider the issues that influence the risk profile of project portfolios. The risk profile includes projects that come from outside software houses as well as those of internal systems development groups.

A unit manager on a field computer installation job is faced with recurring conflict between a programmer and his immediate supervisor.