Information technology is intended to provide companies with a competitive edge.
Today, several factors can inhibit its effectiveness. The move toward market globalization is driving mergers and acquisitions at an unprecedented rate. Information systems must be extremely flexible and open as the need to integrate information stored using different databases, networks and operating systems grows. Analysts estimate that revenue from ERP software is growing at twice the overall rate of the applications market. In addition to the issues caused by globalization, many big companies are linking with customers and suppliers in their supply chains using Internet technology.