This article has pieces of what I heard Larry Summers say at a Percolate event long ago. Reasons why those who adopted electricity were front runners is because:
“What explained the difference was whether the companies had been willing to reorganise to take advantage of what computers had to offer.
That often meant decentralising, outsourcing, streamlining supply chains and offering more choice to customers.
You couldn’t just take your old systems and add better computers. You needed to do things differently.” —BBC
“Our central argument is twofold: first, that a significant component of the value of information technology is its ability to enable complementary organizational investments such as business processes and work practices; second, these investments, in turn, lead to produc- tivity increases by reducing costs and, more importantly, by enabling firms to increase output quality in the form of new products or in improvements in intangible aspects of existing products like convenience, timeliness, quality, and variety.” —MIT
