Since 1999, Babson College and the London Business School have conducted an annual survey of entrepreneurs across the world, asking them many different questions including their motivations for starting a business. In 2024, the most common response among early stage entrepreneurs worldwide was ‘to earn a living because jobs are scarce’ followed by ‘to build great wealth or very high income’.
These findings offer a reality check for the romanticized view of entrepreneurship. While many business leaders may claim to be driven by a desire to make the world a better place or solve pressing social issues, the financial incentives often take precedence. The truth is, businesses exist to make money, and the pursuit of profit is what ultimately sustains their operations. Even when businesses tackle societal problems, they must be profitable to continue their work and scale their impact. This doesn’t mean that solving problems or creating social value is secondary—it simply acknowledges that without a viable business model, the ability to effect lasting change is limited.
According to shareholder theory, the primary responsibility of a business is to maximize value for its shareholders, often equating success with financial performance. This theory positions profit generation as the ultimate goal, where business decisions are made primarily with the interest of shareholders in mind. It reflects the view that the primary duty of a company is to increase its market value, typically through strategies that boost short-term profitability or long-term growth.
In contrast, stakeholder theory expands on this by proposing that a business should consider the interests of all its stakeholders—not just shareholders—such as employees, customers, suppliers, and the wider community. Stakeholder theory argues that businesses thrive when they create value for all parties involved, fostering sustainable practices that can lead to long-term success. While shareholder theory focuses on profit maximization, stakeholder theory emphasizes balancing competing interests to build a more inclusive and ethically responsible model of business. I have provided this context to set the stage for the conversation of the role that information technology (IT) should play in supporting the goals of the business.
“Complaining is not a strategy. You have to work with the world as you find it, not as you would have it be” - Jeff Bezos.
IT strategy, at its core, is about alignment — not just between technologies and technical teams, but between technological capabilities and the strategic aims of the business. It’s easy to assume that adopting the latest system or platform will create value, but in practice, value is only realized when IT decisions are tightly coupled with business priorities. This means understanding where the business is going (growth? cost saving? customer intimacy?) and ensuring IT investments are designed to enable and accelerate that path. Good IT strategy asks: What business problems are we trying to solve? What processes do we need to optimize? What new capabilities must we develop? Only then does it ask: What technologies can support those goals — and what trade-offs are involved in choosing them?
A great example of this principle in action is Domino’s Pizza. In the early 2000s, Domino’s faced serious brand challenges — customer satisfaction was slipping, and the product wasn’t winning any culinary awards. But instead of chasing technology for its own sake, Domino’s took a clear-eyed look at its business goals. Their mission was simple but powerful: make ordering and receiving pizza as fast, easy, and reliable as possible.
From that business goal, the IT strategy followed. Domino’s didn’t just build an app — they created Domino’s AnyWare, allowing customers to order through text, smart TVs, Twitter, voice assistants, and more. They built custom delivery tracking systems, invested in predictive ordering, and experimented with autonomous delivery vehicles — all tightly focused on operational efficiency and customer convenience.
These weren’t tech gimmicks. Every initiative was tied to reducing friction, shortening delivery times, and meeting customers where they were. The result? Over 60% of U.S. sales became digital, and Domino’s stock dramatically outperformed tech giants like Amazon and Apple over the following decade. The lesson: when business leads and technology follows with intention, IT becomes a true competitive advantage.
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Information Strategy Triangle
In the world of business and technology, one of the most enduring frameworks for achieving alignment is the Information Systems Strategy Triangle. Developed by John F. Rockart and later refined by others at MIT's Sloan School of Management in the 1980s and 90s, the triangle was created to address a persistent and costly problem: companies were spending enormous sums on new technology without seeing a corresponding improvement in business performance.
The framework posits that for an organization to succeed, three key strategies must be in constant alignment:
The core insight of the triangle is that these three points are inextricably linked. A change in one must be reflected in the others. A brilliant business strategy will fail if the organizational structure can't support it or if the information systems provide the wrong data. Likewise, a cutting-edge IT system is useless if it doesn't align with how the business operates or what it is trying to achieve. The framework serves as a powerful reminder that technology does not create value in a vacuum; its power is only unleashed when it is in perfect harmony with the business it serves.
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One powerful lens for thinking about how IT strategy connects to the overall strategy of the business is the Value Discipline Model (Treacy & Wiersema), which identifies three broad ways firms compete: Operational Excellence, Product Leadership, and Customer Intimacy. Each discipline implies a different role for technology. In Operational Excellence, IT might be used to streamline logistics, integrate ERP systems, or automate supply chain decisions. In Product Leadership, the focus might be on R&D, rapid prototyping, or enabling agile experimentation. For Customer Intimacy, IT investments often prioritize CRM systems, personalization engines, or data analytics to tailor experiences. The key insight here is that not all IT creates value equally for all companies — its strategic advantage depends on whether it reinforces the firm’s chosen path to differentiation. IT becomes a competitive weapon not when it is cutting-edge, but when it is aligned with what makes the business win.
One of the core ideas in the Value Discipline Model is that a firm should choose one discipline to master — Operational Excellence, Product Leadership, or Customer Intimacy — because trying to be the best at all three often leads to strategic confusion and diluted performance. While exceptional firms may sustain leadership across two disciplines, most succeed by making deliberate trade-offs and aligning their capabilities around a single, dominant discipline.
This has important implications for IT strategy, especially in an era where technology seems to promise everything to everyone. Yes, it’s true that firms can invest in technology across all areas — customer experience platforms, automation systems, advanced R&D tools — but just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. Effective IT strategy means being selective: investing most heavily in the technologies that reinforce your chosen value discipline.