Connecting the business

The organisational challenge of the modern business means the way to manage technology is different

It has been often stated that CIOs need to integrate their technology function within the business, but now this is a pressing reality.

Technology is at the core of every facet of most organisations' operations and structure, as such it must be embedded into the business strategy. This means technology must integrate business need at more than a technical level.

Technology now demands integration of peoples' skills, intertwining business processes and technology that enables organisations rather than ruling them. Therefore, a "Coach not Cop" approach is vital for technology & business process change.

What options do businesses have?

An effective strategy, albeit a hard one to execute, is a matrix technology organisation within business functions with a small, retained core technology function to maintain standardisation and governance.

This approach can be shown to be a significant contributory factor to competitive advantage, enabling organisations to move faster and deliver better business outcomes than those adopting a traditional centralised function.

Forward thinking organisations disband their technology empire save only the critical elements and shift ownership to the business. Whilst this may sound counter-intuitive it has worked in some businesses, especially e-commerce ones.

Of course, one can maintain the status quo and accept the risk of poor integration and siloed operations.

Irrespective of the option taken, CIOs are faced with continually rebalancing skills and capabilities simply to match the ever increasing rate of advancement. They must also form ecosystems of partners to deliver functionality and also maintain the business critical or proprietary capabilities without losing corporate memory.

Business buy-in and cultural change is critical

This demands leadership both at board level and with business unit leaders – Collaboration with a relentless focus on value and outcomes is paramount.

At an enterprise level, business unit participation in ecosystems will affect how CIOs determine strategic and operational investments. Business unit ecosystems must be deliberately integrated to support and improve the overall corporate strategy. The choice is about whether to create a new ecosystem or integrate with existing ones to support the desired business outcomes, not just imposing a certain type of technology.

Making that change takes time and a "Pac Man" approach can be advantageous (i.e. Small successes in incremental steps rather than trying to do everything at once) to create tempo in development and velocity of adoption.

Digital business platforms must create value for everyone in the ecosystem, more importantly, they must attract people to use it

Creating such platforms is difficult, but adoption is the greater challenge. This means identifying net-new requirements for user experience whilst considering integration, security, compliance and reputation risk, alongside a governance model that is not too over-bearing. Achieving this balance can feel like a feat of tight rope walking that should not be underestimated but, if successful, can deliver significant business value.

It naturally follows that the greater number of platforms, the higher the complexity. Relationships, delegation of authority, trust with (enabling) governance are vital. Transactional management will be a fast route to failure in this scenario.

Summary

Technology is so intertwined with business strategy and success that the creation of business technology ecosystems is primarily a business problem.

Matching the balance of good IT practice whilst giving as much control to the business is a delicate balancing act but one that can provide significant competitive advantage.

The future of IT organisations has always been a hot topic, but the rules of the game are changing in a cloud first world. In my TV series, The Cloud Show, I am joined by David Neubold from TechData and Simon Ratcliffe from Ensono to explore this difficult topic. Look out for the special guest appearance from Ernesto as well! Watch the episode here.

What are your views and do you think organisations will be able to manage this challenge effectively or will the status quo remain?