The Always-On Business Model and Competitive Advantage

This chapter discusses the always-on business model of information technology (IT) and how firms can gain a competitive advantage and differentiate themselves from competitors that may be adopting a similar always-on model. The discussion of how firms can get and keep a competitive advantage has been a topic of interest for a long time. An always-on application is a type of IT application; therefore, this is part of a more general research question that has been of interest to researchers that researches have wondered if information system applications actually provide an advantage to firms when firms are getting the same type of IT application. Previous research has concluded that IT improves productivity but the exact mechanisms by which IT increases business value are still not fully understood. One of the mechanism by which IT improves the competitiveness of firms is through the identification of innovative opportunities (Bardhan et al., 2013).