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  3 

Step 3 Identify and rank the ways in which IS might create competitive advantage.  High‑ 

 cost or critical activity areas present good targets.

  4 

Step 4 Investigate how IS might spawn new businesses.

  5 

Step 5 Develop a plan for taking advantage of IS, which is  business‑  driven rather than 

 technology‑  driven. The plan should assign priorities to the IS investments (which of 

course should be subjected to an appropriate  cost–  benefit analysis).

This process can also be applied to an organisation’s external value chain. Womack and 

Jones (1998) refer to 

value stream analysis, which considers how the whole production and 

delivery process can be made more efficient. They suggest that companies should map every 

activity that occurs in creating new products and delivering products or services to custom‑

ers and then categorise them as: