Please go ahead and read his posting, here is my response to him:

Hello Daniel,

I really like and appreciate your comments and fully underwrite them. You do make a couple of assumptions, though, and I would 100% follow you under these assumptions (as I said in my post, I intended to make some bold statements as a counter opinion). I especially like one of the recurring thoughts of- and I paraphrase – “If your business model relies on IT, you better make sure it works – effectively and efficient”.

And sometimes people might not realize how much their business model relies – or could rely – on IT. I recently helped a large wholesale appliance installation company and a one-man-show cabinet-maker to generate and track sales leads through an IT-based system, including social networking advertisment campaigns, dedicated blog sponsorship, and local sponsorship. I guess they never thought that this part of their business model was flawed because they used old computer systems.

I am divided on your point of new talent attraction and “latest cutting edge IT stuff” as a must have – that is certainly true for some sectors (mine definitely!), not so much in other industries. I think this is a case-by-case decision, but you make a valid point here.

In terms of “IT for customer relationship management with customers from Delhi” I certainly agree, a good example. And, as you also point out, just a part of the equation. I quoted some great comments by Seth Godin and Tom Peters in http://www.playoutintelligence.com/2009/01/07/tech-and-customer-service/ from a recent video interview they did with McKinsey, maybe you find that worth watching.

Anyways, I hope you get lots of responses, I myself am interested to see both sides discussed. And of course as an IT innovation geek I’d like to see more geeky stuff around me ;)