Top executives of organizations are increasingly looking at IT as a source of competitive advantage. An IT department is becoming an inalienable part of a business enterprise. Chief information officers are part of the top management team. But, does IT deserve so much attention? Can it actually deliver the strategic value it boasts of? The article discusses the strategic importance of IT. Strategy decisions in organizations are increasingly getting dependent on technology adoption decisions1. The interdependency of strategy and technology can be traced to the Second World War when globalization and technological development speeded up massive war effort. War effort needed high levels of hierarchical organizational design and control mechanisms. After the war, strategy got integrated with organizational design decisions influenced by the then dominant industrial technologies.

Metaphors influence the way an organization functions. People leading organizations choose dominant technologies of their time to coin metaphors for their organizations. They also ensure that tools are developed to support the metaphors that express their views. As the metaphors become popular, they become self-fulfilling prophecies till the technological paradigm is replaced by a new technology. Two dominant metaphors emerged since the Second World War. The first was "strategy as organization." This metaphor was coined to emphasize the necessity of structuring firms for deployment of resources on a global scale. The second was "strategy as network." This metaphor motivated firms to deploy computer systems to manage their complex activities that spanned across the globe.