Leveraging Information Systems
As information systems become ubiquitous around the world, today we look at how leveraging these systems given our scarce resources has become increasingly important to business survival, echoing Caesar’s Gallic divide and conquer wartime strategy of long ago.

Julius Caesar’s strategy was an overarching vision of leverage. Caesar was smart, coercive and intelligent; he leveraged his relatively small army towards his ultimate goal of power, influence and dominance. No resource was underutilised. To inflict maximum impact on his enemies, Caesar used every trick in the book; Caesar made up tricks of his own. Determined to outsmart his enemies, Caesar’s resourcefulness epitomised his strategy for political supremacy.
Today, Information Systems are the toolbox of the modern Caesarean strategist. Clever statisticians, data analytics wizards and their forward thinking managers can leverage Information Systems to compete with the titans of the modern business world. With swathes of data generated every day — leveraging and maximising it to our advantage has never been more important.
A well-documented facet of Caesar’s military campaigns is how he frequently found himself outnumbered against his opponents. This is reflected in the world of business today, with start-ups and small enterprises vying to compete against industry giants. Similarly, in their infancy, new ideas, new companies and new initiatives start small. What separates the great from the good? How did David, Caesar and the myriad of triumphant start-ups overcome Goliath?
In Zero to One, Peter Thiel’s book on start-ups and building the future, he says: “technology is miraculous because it allows us do more with less.” (Thiel, 2014) Doing more with less. Instead of spending money to expand his army and win with horsepower, Caesar used the army he had in smarter ways. Innovation is driven by information and even when everyone in the world has access to the same information and technology, there is still no unanimous agreement on uncertain outcomes (Levy & Powell, 1998). Take the stock market for example. The Efficient Markets Hypothesis asserts that the markets cannot be beat because everyone has the same information (Schwager, 1989). However, even if everyone has this information, there is no reason to assume they make inferences from it in the same way (ibid.). This phenomenon is mirrored in the domain of information systems. The innovative ways in which people use the same data is what allow them to carve out successes.
In 2003, Nicholas Carr wrote an article for HBR expressing concern at the expenditure of firms in IT, asserting that IT had become commoditised and opportunities to gain edge in the market using IT were dwindling (Carr, 2003). While we now know that this was clearly not the case, the article encourages an important question. What are the marginal gains from funnelling money into IT infrastructure? What if, the way in which we use the existing infrastructure in ever more creative ways is the way to gain edge in information technology?
In Managing Information Systems: Strategy and Organisation, Boddy et. al. posit that “only humans can ask the intelligent questions,” insinuating the questions asked by strategic leaders constitute the competitive advantage that can be gained from information systems (Boddy, et al., 2008). The technologies we use are not new; progress and advancement will emerge from how we can leverage these technologies in new and creative ways.

How does this manifest itself today? How would Caesar be leveraging the information technologies of the 21st century?
In his seminal work on strategy, Michel Porter identified that the key to growth and survival was to establish a position in the market where you are less vulnerable to attack from direct competitors and less vulnerable to erosion from other channels such as buyers, suppliers and substitute goods (Porter, 1979). This is reminiscent of Caesar’s famous wartime strategy of divide and conquer. Today, we can hypothesise that Caesar would be continuing to ensure the growth and survival of his empire by leveraging information systems to optimise his path of progression.
Game theory is the study of mathematical models of conflict and cooperation between intelligent rational decision-makers (Kose, et al., 2017). Such tools can be incorporated into Decision Support Systems (DSS) that support the judgements, analysis and strategies of leaders.
An interesting marriage between Game Theory and Geographical Information Systems is outlined in Kose et. al.’s research into military decision problems. Their analysis outlines how game theory and GIS can be used in conjunction to solve military decision problems (Kose, et al., 2017). The decision problem is selecting a plan for troops who want to maximize the probability of identifying enemies on a particular route along an international border (ibid.). This represents clever leverage of the same resources (in this case a fixed number of troops) to obtain an optimal outcome.
An additional consideration is how GIS in conjunction with Game Theory can support leaders and managers in their logistical decision making. Have you ever wondered why you can pass multiple Starbucks stores within a tiny radius of each other? This is no coincidence.
“In order to assess a potential new store location, Starbucks leverages data from Atlas, an in-house mapping and business intelligence platform … [which] provides Starbucks with data on consumer demographics, population density, income levels, auto traffic patterns, public transport stops and the types of stores / businesses in the location under evaluation.” (HBS Digital Initiative, 2015)
Businesses can express their environments in terms of a game theoretic framework, identifying the areas in which they can maximise market share over their competitors. This allows a business to maximise profits, revenues and market dominance leveraging the very same resources. This too echoes Caesar’s Gallic campaign of divide and conquer.
Uber, the taxi-hailing app, is an excellent example of a company who leveraged their resources to compete with incumbent forces in an industry. In its infancy, Uber was a start-up with few drivers. Uber relies heavily on GIS, matching each user with the closest driver who is available for pick-up, identifying the areas with high driver demand and encouraging their drivers to frequent these areas (USC Dornsife, 2019). Smart utilisation of a limited number of drivers catapulted Uber into a market leading position, establishing a reputation as a master of creative destruction on the way. The technology used by Uber, namely GPS and navigation, was not new by any stretch of the imagination. Its strategic and innovative application was what made the difference. It is not difficult to extrapolate Caesar’s war tactics to a similar outcome in business today.
It is apparent that in a world of globalisation, plentiful information, inexpensive technology and a pursuant decrease in barriers to entry, the way in which we utilise information given scarce resources is increasingly important. It would be interesting to see how Caesar would “do more with less” in the current business environment.
Bibliography
Boddy, D., Boonstra, A. & Kennedy, G., 2008. Managing information systems : strategy and organisation. 3rd Edition ed. s.l.:FT Prentice Hall.
Carr, N. G., 2003. IT Doesn’t Matter. Harvard Business Review, Issue May.
HBS Digital Initiative, 2015. Starbucks: Brewing up a data storm!. [Online]
Available at: https://digital.hbs.edu/platform-digit/submission/starbucks-brewing-up-a-data-storm/
[Accessed 27 October 2019].
Kose, E., Erbas, M. & Ersen, E., 2017. An integrated approach based on game theory and geographical information systems to solve decision problems. Applied Mathematics and Computation, Volume 308, pp. 105–114.
Levy, M. & Powell, P., 1998. SME Flexibility and the Role of Information Systems. Small Business Economics, Volume 11, pp. 183–196.
Porter, M. E., 1979. How Competitive Forces Shape Strategy. Harvard Business Review, Issue March.
Schwager, J. D., 1989. Market Wizards. Kindle Edition ed. s.l.:Wiley.
Thiel, P., 2014. Zero to One : Notes on statups, or how to build the future. s.l.:Crown Business New York.
USC Dornsife, 2019. How Household Names Use GIS. [Online]
Available at: https://gis.usc.edu/blog/how-household-companies-use-gis/
[Accessed 27 October 2019].

