Nicholas Carr at it again.

Former executive editor of Harvard Business Review, business writer, speaker, and unfailing trouble maker, Nicholas Carr is at it again. Carr, author famous (or should I say infamous) for his 2003 HBR article "IT Doesn't Matter" appears poised to stir fresh controversy in the IT industry, warning organizations to stop spending on technology.

Recently, in front of a London audience, Carr told listeners that organizations have been misled to believe that buying technology can make them more productive. He said "smaller firms are more productive than large firms and yet they have less technology", and went on to call for companies to question the importance of IT. Carr stated that "successful IT management comes down to successful management and not just those who are more innovative or take more chances." and that "companies should spend less on IT"

James Governor, industry analyst at Red Monk, welcomed Carr's comments, noting that our industry was short on comedians, but acknowledged a greater relevance in some of Carr's statements. Governor said "frankly we should all be shifting uncomfortably in our chairs", noting that Carr's statements would ring true with a number of businesses who may have forgotten past over-spending or poor purchasing decisions.

I find a lot of holes in Carr's original article, but there is no doubt it has become a seminal piece in the field. His main proposition was that businesses have overestimated the strategic value of IT, and he gives voice to the many senior executives frustrated by the increasing spend on IT, and the little demonstration of its value. One of the most unfortunate problems with the paper is its title. Carr doesn't actually argue that IT doesn't matter, his assertion is that IT is diminishing as a source of strategic advantage. It concerns me that many readers will remember the article title, but fail to remember its nuances. I agree, in part, with his assertion, and yes, some forms of IT have lost their strategic value, however, even as IT becomes ubiquitous, the skill and insight needed to harness IT's potential will not be so omnipresent. Organizations have spent millions of dollars consolidating their data layers, capturing terabytes of data. If that just sits there, taking up disk space, then Carr is right, there is no value, but in the hand of a trained analyst, the information obtained could be priceless.

If we have learnt anything from the past few decades, it's that IT, in itself, rarely bestows strategic advantage. The value of IT is in it's potential. Here lies the strategic advantage possibilities.