Any predictions about the future and particularly given the speed at which technology and business practice is changing, is purely speculative. In this article I attempt to put my own perspective of the future risks and opportunities in this area.

The first major development I expect is that business intelligence as a concept will have greater profile and influence over the average business structure. The entrance of competitors and the need to constantly revise practice in line with new trends means that without good business intelligence, firms will be hampered in the extent to which they can make viable ventures.

It is a very imprudent manager indeed who fails to plan for the expansion of business intelligence. Those firms that fail in this endeavor will continue to lose customers and money. If they are not ultimately driven out of business, they will provide a cautionary tale for those who ignore business advice.

Information technology has democratized communication systems. The growth of social media has enabled end users to participate in the assessment and general direction of the brand. It is only a matter of time before decision makers realize that the customer will have to be involved in running the organizations. A case in point is how airlines have been forced to provide better facilities for people with disabilities due to a concerted publicity campaign by ordinary members of the public. One of the methods used to publicize this cause were social networking sites.

There will also be specific developments within the business intelligence technology such as the creation of bespoke packages to deal with the increase in demand and the diversity of objectives from each of the organizations. Already individual companies are in the process of defining their requirements for the future. It is highly likely that the next step would be to commission these InfoTech services. It might also be that the technology will start specializing by sector or business types and that generic technology will fall out of fashion.

Business intelligence is also likely to foster a new climate of collegiate working whereby management information is no longer just restricted to the senior executives but can also find its way down to the end users who are then able to determine how it can be useful to them in their day to day work. The utopia is that all customers and employees feedback to managers. This would make them stakeholders and would presumably develop brand loyalty.

Of course there is concern about the risk that technology will completely override human discretion and companies will be further de-personalized. This is a risk that every developing organization faces. However given the popularity of new media connectivity, it is likely that the customers will not mind having digital interaction with businesses.

Almost everyone is well aware of the fact that the IT is capable of making maintainable and sustainable competitive benefits. In the business arena, the IT is used through value chain of activities that facilitates the business organization to control and optimize the operational functions for effortless decision making process.

The IT is strategic in it’s skill by building the concept of “Value Chain” in a business o0rganization through generic value activities that are interdependent of each other. This chain comprises elements like customers, suppliers, finance, production, etc. There is a connection between these activities which makes it a value chain. These value chain activities as well as the product’s physical parts and processing is altered either by product differentiation or cutting the costs of the value activities. The IT on the whole even transforms the speed of competition.

The value of the company can be added by the IT either by increasing revenue or reduction in costs. The potential of the IT of adding value to the business firm is very different from being the source of the sustainable competitiveness.

Though, the IT’s ability to be a source of the sustainable competitive advantages is disputed and based on assumptions. The assumptions result in two theories. The correlation between IT and the sustainable competitive benefit is studied by one theory called as the Create capture and Keep paradigm. This basically relies on swapping the costs of the customers.

This theory got replaced by a resource based theory that explicates the company’s potential to use the IT to influence the basic resources as a plus and also source of the sustainable competitive edge. In this theory, when the company possesses similar resources or capability, which the other competitor company doesn’t posses, then the same constitutes as the source of the competitive edge.

But the problem is that, if the resources are constant, then it will be a great disadvantage at the cost of the company. So the same will not make a sustainable competitive edge. Simply by imitation of the IT resources of the successful company without social complexity or ambiguity might also make a sustainable competitive edge.

In any kind of organization, the IT is a potential source of competitive edge in these five methods given below:

• When the supplier is in a good position and the IT is essential and unique for the end users, then the costs borne by the consumers will be switched
• When a technology becomes a proprietary technology
• When the capital Investment in the IT enabled resource increases
• For building the IT application, some technical skills are needed
• When the managerial skills are developed for exploiting and understanding the IT application for increasing the business operations

Each and every kind of information in the firm can get positive results and has the potential to get sustainable competitive edge if you observe the following steps:

1. Assessing the potential and the existing information intensity of the process and product
2. Evaluating the probable impact of the IT on the firm
3. Identifying the rank of the activities that affects the IT first
4. Measuring how the IT can bring new business
5. Generating the action plan by taking advantages of IT

It is not just one supporting system, but also a perfect thought process contributing substantial edge, effects and the implications in the business goals.

The first thing to recognize that process means that activities are interrelated. The negligence of one part will lead to the collapse of other parts. The need to keep a strategic perspective to any activities will become even more acute if there is a particular problem with a process that requires undue attention from the managers. If a consequence of this attention is that other parts of the project fail, then it will show a lack of attention to the idea of strategic oversight.

The manager cannot be expected to know every aspect of a business process but what they must know are the implications of that process on the business. You can get away with not knowing what something is as long as you understand the role it plays. Subordinates will be able to assist in getting over the detail. The responsibility for executive action over process links is a serious matter.

Structure also has a role to play here. The manager does not need to dictate every single convolution of a business process. However they could be well advised to create a template of minimum standards to which each team can work. The lack of structure has been known to work very well amongst creative people but given the importance of business performance management, this approach is less desirable. Therefore as a minimum the various aspects of the organization should be structured enough to at least be able to communicate and work with other departments.

Managers need to be aware of the evolutionary nature of business processes. This is a necessary progression for them to either cope with change or as a result of innovation by different members of the organization. The manager should not be in a mindset where they have a prepared negative answer to any form of request from the teams to change the processes. This sparks of traditionalism and failure to consider that innovation can be harnessed even during a performance management exercise.

On the other hand the manager also needs to be weary of those employees who change things just for the sake of changing things. They will suggest innovations that add little value to the business but create an awful lot of trouble and work for everyone else. Others might be on an ego trip and will be looking to impress managers with their endless proposals for improvement. The key is to strike a balance between allowing genuine innovation to flourish and preventing unnecessary shocks to the existing business systems in the name of giving overzealous employees an energy rush.