Study Of The IT Absorption Process And IT Strategy Of China National Coal Group Corporation

Nolan's stages theory proposes that companies progress through a series of well-defined stages, labeled Initiation, Contagion, Control, and Integration, as they learn to absorb new information technologies. According to this 'stages theory', companies have to start a new learning cycle with each major innovation in the field of information technologies. In each learning cycle, IT budget growth curve would display an S-shape, which is tightly linked to companies' learning curve regarding the management and use of information technology. Initially proposed in 1973, the theory has itself evolved considerably over 20 years and has continued to appeal to practitioners and consultants and has recently been applied to e-commerce on the grounds of its practical usefulness and intuitive plausibility. According to the depth and width of IT application, enterprises can be categorized into four types: traditional, spine, confederacy and modern enterprises, among which the style of modern enterprises is the target of IT development. The other types of enterprise need to improve width and/or depth of IT application so that they can move towards the direction of the modern style. China National Coal Group Corporation (ChinaCoal) is a large state-owned enterprise, whose development strategy has been basically formed. To match the strategy, ChinaCoal is in need of an IT strategic plan, so as to support and realize the enterprise strategy with the aid of IT. To study the situation and strategy of the IT application of ChinaCoal, we conducted a survey on the sub-companies of the enterprise, With questionnaires and interviews, we collected data from the all the sub-companies and constructed a database. By analyses on these data, this article summarizes and recapitulates the history, status, and trend of IT application in ChinaCoal, pointing out the problems in the process, summing up the key factors for informationization and suggesting the ideas, targets, emphases, courses and policies of IT management in ChinaCoal and its subsidiaries by using information strategy planning methods. While analyzing the IT penetration of Chinacoal and its subsidiaries, this article also discusses some general issues in IT application of large scale and monomer enterprises, as well as educes some principles in the process of IT growth.