InformationWeek
Defining The Business Value Of Technology
September 14, 1998
Defining IT InnovationThe InformationWeek 500 all share a bold willingness to take fresh approaches to using IT
By Bob Violino
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nnovation is all about reexamining old ways of thinking, embracing creativity, and, ultimately,
creating new opportunities. All of the companies in our 10th annual InformationWeek 500
ranking are driving innovation through their bold use of information technology. These companies
aren't just using IT to improve their standings in their traditional markets-they're leveraging IT
to create new markets. And while these 500 innovators compete in a variety of industries and take widely divergent approaches to making and selling their products and services, each drives change by incorporating newer technologies-or leveraging older ones with a new twist-that provide better service to customers, transfer knowledge to and from employees more quickly, and ease transactions with trading partners. These IT innovators are the kinds of enterprises that are quickly imitated by others in their industries-and even in unrelated sectors.
Organizations that fit this profile tend to approach their mission with a visionary zeal. "It's a
matter of looking at what technology can do, rather than just looking at what has already been
done," says Randy Mott, senior VP and CIO at retailer Wal-Mart Stores Inc. in Bentonville, Ark.,
and InformationWeek's 1997 Chief of the Year. "Rather than placing technology in a
stereotype, you say, 'Here's a business process that we need to improve; how can we use IT to do
this?' There's an infinite number of opportunities for using technology to your company's
benefit."
The companies in this year's ranking are taking advantage of many of those opportunities. Each won placement on the list based on a rigorous questionnaire fielded this summer by InformationWeek Research (see "Where To Find Innovators,").
Each was evaluated in a variety of technology and business areas, including desktop computing and application development tools, the Internet and electronic business, networking and data access, knowledge management and data mining, the use of enterprise applications, and the effectiveness of the company's business processes.
The most startling result of our months-long project was our finding that the IT organizations within the InformationWeek 500 are contributing mightily to their companies' bottom lines.
IT organizations in eight of 10 InformationWeek 500 companies directly produce or sell products. Among those companies doing at least some business online, nearly one in four of their revenue dollars is related to electronic-business transactions.
Nearly all InformationWeek 500 companies run intranets. Most use them to support functions such as human resources and sales. Intranets are becoming the preferred method to execute full-text information searches, use decision-support systems, do online analytical processing or data mining, manage workflow processes, and provide access to video and audio archives.
Most of these companies operate-or are testing-IP-based virtual private networks that support
remote access by mobile workers and distributed servers.
continued...page 2, 3, 4, 6
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