Competitive information systems in Australian retail banking

Abstract Competitive information systems may provide sustainable competitive advantage to a firm through the use of information technology and systems. Current research suggests generalizations about their nature, based only on a limited range of apparently successful systems from different industries and periods. However, the approach in this study is to look at one industry, and so at a set of comparable businesses and competitive information systems. The Australian banking industry, an industry in transmission from oligopoly to competition, is used as the basis for a study of competitive information system, using an industry-wide framework. Competitive information systems appear as a more complex phenomenon than is generally proposed and their use in a competitive industry seems to be characterized more by a number of small interactive moves than one sustainable competitive breakthrough.