Impact of information on the value chain of an enterprise in the new economy

Increasingly commentators talk about the Information Age. Stewart (1998:21) even goes as far as designating 1991 as Year One – the year that [capital] 'spending for production technology [in the US] was $107 billion and information technology spending was $112 billion'. In this new age, 'knowledge and information take on their own reality, which can be detached from the physical movement of goods and services' (Stewart 1998:31). Value chain analysis is based on the assumption that a business's basic purpose is to create value for the users of its products or services (Pearce and Robinson 1997:176). If knowledge – and by implication, information – has indeed become the 'primary ingredient of what we make, do, buy and sell' (Stewart 1998:12), then information must be playing a role in value creation and entering the value chain at various points.