Abstract
This research paper puts light on the competitive advantage of IT for professional service industries using strategic information system planning (SISP) and the new paradigm in service oriented architecture SOA 3.0. A service provider can obtain competitive advantage from its competing businesses by offering its customers better value, by means of better benefits and services with affordable low cost solutions to its consumers. This advantage can be achieved by using strategic information system planning (SISP). A service provider has to go through a major change in its policies and procedure to provide end-user services by introducing the methodology of SOA 3.0. This is a complicated task and introduces a major change for all inter-organizational stakeholders. This change is initiated from planning for IS/IT internal and external users, based on a competitive business strategy to win the consumer’s trust. The discussion in this paper covers the utilization of information communication technology by airlines for competitive advantage. This paper also discusses the gap between research in academia and practices in the industry and, how to overcome this gap by embedding current research into the general practices of the industry.