The Hub Commentary_
I agree with Don and his summary of this topic as it hits the core of any business service management practice – it isn’t IT and then the Business, IT is the business. In some cases it is more prevalent that technology is driving revenue with online order processing and customer interactions. In all cases I can point someone to how IT is the business in the supporting functions that drive the efficiency and effectiveness in a more behind the scenes nature.
There are 3 things Don calls attention to regarding IT and the focus now on driving revenue and lining up with business objectives: 1) Innovation where IT drives revenue very obviously, 2) Competition from the cloud providers and 3) Cost cutting driving bottom line margin. We have focused too long and too much on the last, driving out costs, without automating so we can focus on the first one. The catalyst for the “why now” question is the obvious, the second piece – the competition.
IT has not balanced growing and operating well in the past and has created opportunity for competition with new technology and buying options from the many cloud providers that are growing exponentially this year. Investment must be made to automate the mundane operating to create intelligence for higher quality services, but also freeing resources to concentrate on innovation.
Are you balanced between growing and operating?
Michele
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InformationWeek has been out and about talking up their most recent CIO survey and keeps calling attention to the fact that one in three CIOs see creating a new business or business model as a driver in 2011. This is not a new phenomenon, but one in three is more CIOs than I would have intuitively thought, so I started to think about it.
