Ict As An Agent Of Change In Spanish Companies: Current Situation And Future Trends

This study, carried out by the e-business Center PwC&IESE, is the Spanish Chapter of the Business and Information Technologies (BIT) Project, being spearheaded by the UCLA Anderson School of Management. The main objective of the project is to analyze the impact of the new information and communication technologies (ICT) on business practices.The study has been conducted by a survey addressed to the chief information officers of Spanish organizations belonging to a wide range of industries. All the companies make independent decisions on issues related to their information systems. To allow for crosscountry comparisons, the Spanish Chapter has followed the guidelines set forth for all countries. As a consequence, this summary reports the main findings for Spain, comparing them with previous US results.The results indicate that ICTs have a positive impact on business activities of Spanish companies, mainly by the reduction of (1) production costs, (2) internal information costs, (3) the creation of new work habits, and (4) the implementation of user-oriented strategies. Nonetheless, no significant changes can be observed neither in operating margins nor revenues, and the use of ICTs does not seem to have contributed to simplify organizational structures.Comparing the results obtained in the Spanish survey with those of the United States, the main difference between the implementation of ICT in both countries lies in the organization of the workforce. While Spanish companies have experienced only small or even inexistent changes of their organizational structures, US companies have introduced more flexible structures, which increase the geographic dispersion of workers.