Dr. Eric K. Clemons is Professor of Operations and Information Management at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He has been a pioneer in the systematic study of the transformational impacts of information on the strategy and practice of business. His research and teaching interests include strategic uses of information systems, the changes that information technology enables in the competitive balance between new entrants and established industry participants, transformation of distribution channels, the structure and governance of the IT functional area, and the impact of information technology on the risks and benefits of outsourcing and strategic alliances. Industries of focus include international securities markets and financial services firms, consumer packaged goods retailing, and travel. He specializes in assessing the competitive implications of information technology, and in managing the risks of large-scale implementation efforts.

Dr. Clemons has been among the earliest authors to write about business process outsourcing, online securities trading and electronic markets, channel conflict and frameworks for predicting successful and unsuccessful online sales efforts, and social networking Web sites.

Additionally, Dr. Clemons is the founder and Project Director for the Wharton School's Sponsored Research Project on Information: Strategy and Economics within the Program For Global Strategy and Knowledge Intensive Organizations, founder and area coordinator the School's new major in Information: Strategy, and Economics, director of the School's new eCommerce major and member of the Wharton eBusiness Initiative Curriculum Oversight Committee, an active participant in the School's eCommerce Forum research program, and member of the Faculty Council of the SEI Center for Advanced Studies in Management.

In his consulting practice, Dr. Clemons focuses on helping clients anticipate the fundamental impacts information technology will have on the structure of their industries and on helping them develop a range of strategies to deal with the changes to their industry. This has enabled his clients to develop strategies and prepare for their rapid deployment, even in the presence of a high degree of environmental uncertainty. He has participated as expert witness in cases involving software contracting fraud, antitrust, and intellectual property disputes. He has worked for clients as traditional as The London Stock Exchange, Prudential Insurance, the InterContinental Hotels Group, and senior Pentagon officials, and as cutting-edge as numerous Internet startups, and as quirky and innovative as a fast-growing micro-brewery.

Dr. Clemons is currently a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Management Information Systems and the Journal of Electronic Commerce. He has served on the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment study of securities markets and on the Quality of Markets Advisory Board of the London Stock Exchange and has three times been co-Chair of the international Workshop on Information Systems Economics. His education includes an S.B. in Physics from MIT and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Operations Research from Cornell University. Dr. Clemons has thirty years experience on the faculties of Wharton, Cornell, and Harvard, and consulting experience in the private and public sectors both domestically and abroad. He can be reached at consulting@cutter.com.