STR A TEGIC IMPO R T ANCE O F RFID - THE PERSPECTIVE O F IT DECISION MAKERS IN I T A L Y

RFID technologies are currently considered a hot topic in the IT arena and have been described as a major enabling technology for automated, contactless, wireless data collection. Little is known about the perceived strategic importance of RFID among IT decision makers, current RFID usage, companies' intentions to invest in RFID and companies’ visions of RFID application. This research contributes quantitative data on IT decision makers’ view of RFID across various industries and company sizes in Italy. RFID is currently not very widespread. Many IT decision makers have not even heard about it. Those who have thought about the topic perceive RFID as a strategic issue. They expect the importance of RFID to rise significantly over the next few years. Companies’ RFID budgets will rise over the next 5 years and IT decision makers are willing to invest in the technology. However, RFID is not a topic of high priority on the IT agenda. IT decision makers hope for more process accuracy and reduction of errors. Moreover, they see RFID as a means to enable new service, even though they do not think it could influence their core competencies significantly.