Leveraging Data, Information, and Knowledge for Competitive Advantage Essay

Leveraging Data, Information, and Knowledge for Competitive Advantage - Essay Example The solution then came out to be the term which is now known as competitive advantage. The term means that internal factor or product strength or critical success factor or the product itself or any service which one specific organization does best when it comes to the others in the same industry. (Hope, 1997) When that edge is maintained over time, not permanently, but for a significant amount of time, and when a noticeable amount of market share is snatched by that particular company, based on that factor that only this company possesses over its competitors, then that is known as the competitive advantage that one firm has in the industry that it belongs to. Companies are always striving to efficiently and effectively utilize the resources that they have and gain a competitive advantage over the rivals that they have, since having one goes a long way in making the company successful and stand out in the market, increasing the goodwill both in the eyes of customers and all other st akeholders associated with the company. As mentioned above, such a competitive advantage is not permanent, thus a company should not release the pressure of competition once a competitive advantage has been gained. Rather, they should continually try to develop themselves to achieve the zenith when it comes to different factors, so that an edge can be maintained over time and with consistency. Management Information Systems (MIS) are not the regular computer systems, since they specialize in providing the user with analysis of all the other information systems that are synchronized with it and which take care of all the operational activities which take place in the organizations. Usually the daily decision making that a manager has to go through is more or less related with the those activities which have a direct effect on the cash flows and liquidity of the company, that is, the operational activities. (Davenport, 2000) And therefore, the MIS systems make use of