Information Technology in Europe - The Enterprise Resource Planning Experience for the Italian Business

MA European Business – Dissertation in Information Technology in Europe 
                   1/09/2008  
Davide Boaglio  Supervisor: Dr. David Bevan 
 
 
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Porter discusses the significance of Technology, and the values which create competitive 
advantage by optimizing and transmitting information at reduced cost. Technology is not 
anymore an unexplored planet, with the exclusivity of the Information System Department; these 
days, also the Management become more involved, performing strategic tasks through data 
access. Increasingly, the central question is becoming who should have the access to the 
information in these storage systems to guarantee that the right decisions are made (Lyotard, 
p.14, 1989).  
Pervading every single activity of the value-chain, Information Technology, is changing the way 
how a corporation does business. The increasing occurrence of shared data inside a firm 
increases performance and the quality of decision making. For these reason leaders have to focus 
on dialogue at all levels, before and during the implementation of the new system. Amoak-
Gyampah and Salam identifies that an effective communication from leaders and continuative 
promotion are the most important characteristics that influence the adoption of the technologies 
inside a Corporate or State. 
Considering the above characteristics we can examine the Italian situation. During 2003 the 
Italian Ministry working Institute for Industrial Promotion (IPI) started to promote the RIDITT 
(the Italian Network for Innovation and Technology Transfer to Small and Medium-sized 
Enterprises). The aims of this project were to improve the competitiveness of the Italian market 
by developing services for the technology. An initial step has been done through studies 
representing the economic update picture of the Information and Communication Technology 
(ICT) activities of the Italian infrastructures, but this is just an evaluation.