CREATING AND SUSTAINING COMPETITIVENESS - INFORMATION MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES OF NIPPON STEEL CORPORATION

This paper analyses the process of creating and sustaining competitiveness through information management by Nippon Steel Corporation of Japan. A framework linking information management and the process of sustaining competitiveness is presented. Nippon Steel Corporation has used a combination of information management strategies for sustaining and creating competitiveness. The success of information management strategy of Nippon Steel Corporation is due to (a) intensive scanning for new information; (b) identifying new business opportunities using IT; (c) rapid information assimilation through organizational learning; (d) information fusion for generating new innovations; (e) intensive use of information through learning by doing and learning by using; (f) building competence for achieving new business through tie-ups and rapid commercial utilization of already available technologies; and (h) highly forward-looking and intensive information management strategy at the firm level.