All that suggests it can take a while to build an effective IT strategy, and in fact it does. But that doesn’t mean new players can’t emerge. Cisco Systems is a great example. It’s got a hot product in Internet telecommunications equipment. But it’s also the best example of how to use both front-office Internet and back-office transaction systems in running a business. And it never stops looking for new ways to innovate with technology.

Other newcomers to the IT-enabled strategy club are General Electric and Harrah’s Entertainment. At GE, technology wasn’t initially high on CEO and Chairman Jack Welch’s list of management tools, but he’s discovered it with a vengeance. He says that "digitizing" GE’s business was the most important thing the company did and has vowed to keep major investments even through an economic slowdown. At Harrah’s, the senior management team--and particularly COO Gary Loveman--has been overseeing the development of an incredibly powerful marketing machine powered by database marketing, CRM, yield management and high-powered analytics. The company is now managing to attract customers without building the mind-boggling expensive casinos you find in Las Vegas today. And its financial performance is way up during the past couple of years.

What do these companies have in common? I’m glad you asked, because their approaches compose the new IT strategy.

Put your money where the money is. These successful companies make their IT investments in the core of the business, consistent with their product and service strategies. In almost every case, there’s a link between the technology and something the customer can see and buy.

Not always first, but always committed. Successful IT strategists aren’t necessarily the first movers on a new technology or IT-related management idea. Wal-Mart and USAA were slow out of the box with their Web capabilities, but they came on strong and will last. A hallmark of good IT strategy is long-term commitment--across generations of new technologies and managers. You can bet that Jack Welch is schooling his successor, Jeffrey Immelt, on the importance of IT to GE.

Maestros in the boardroom. These long-term, committed managers might be called maestros. The term comes from a book called Waves of Change, based on the early history of strategic IT, most of the research for which was done by Duncan Copeland. A maestro knows the business goals and enough technology to understand how it can advance the strategy. He also orchestrates the business and technological changes over the long term to bring about a transformed organization.