The helm or the rudder – business or IT?

A paradigm shift of sorts is taking place. Once the key driver of business, Information Technology (IT) is now one, of a few, important enablers. Undoubtedly this is quite a mind shift if compared to the late nineties where the imminent doom of Y2K saw more than one organisation rushing to
ensure that its systems remained fully functioning in the wake of a technology doomsday.

Now reflecting back it all seems almost laughable and reminiscent of a SciFi movie gone horribly wrong as opposed to a real-life scenario.

However, this said, it has taken organisations a number of years to realise that business must collaborate with technology and that ICT decisions cannot be made in isolation.

Take business intelligence (BI) for example: an IT resource is not the
appropriate person to determine what information should be delivered to whom
and in what context. Business drives this requirement.

Despite the above premise, some organisations are still lead by technology.
“There is undoubtedly a fair amount of organisations that depend heavily on
the IT department for IT decisions. Often this directly relates to the
maturity of an organisation,” comments spokesperson at e.com institute.

“Corporate organisations, for example, have realised they need to first
determine their business strategy before making IT decisions. On the other
hand, we often find that smaller or less mature organisations are still
dictated by technology – there is actually a disconnect between IT and
business,” adds Faeez Kana, BI Practice Manager at e.com institute.

So, while some might believe that the concept of business driving IT is, in
fact, a no-brainer, why do some organisations insist on having it the other
way around? Well, our nineties legacy still impacts the way organisations
think about technology – even a full decade later.

“Lots of businesses see IT as the custodians of information. They believe
it is a luxury as opposed to an enabler. Furthermore, organisations have
invested a lot in their legacy systems and as a result are reluctant to fork
out more cash for newer technologies – here IT is still driving processes
which makes it difficult to change their thinking,” Jan Moolman, BI Practice
Manager at e.com institute.

The reality is that whilst IT is an important business driver, it’s by no
means the foundation on which all business decisions should be built. “Again
we see that a lot of later generation companies are business savvy and, more
importantly, understand IT and how it can enhance their organisational
processes.

What can organisations, therefore, do to remedy the above? “Business and IT
should collaborate; working in silos is something of the past and IT should
cater for the enterprise-wide requirements of the organisation,” says
spokesperson.

“To turn the proverbial tide, business should take ownership of their
technology investment. They need to align their strategies, which should
take place at senior executive level. Furthermore, with the help of
methodologies such as Service-Oriented Architectures (SOA) legacy systems
can be re-used – organisations will therefore get the most from their
technology investments.

“It is a balancing act that needs to be established at management level. The
CIO and CFO should work together, making important technology decisions
together. This applies to both large and small organisations; striking the
right balance is essentially what it’s all about,” says spokesperson

“Indeed, younger generation organisations have grown up, if you will, with
modern technology and understand that you can’t separate the two
components,” adds Moolman.

Thus, if you look at it realistically, business and IT actually co-exist –
business at the helm and technology the rudder – both steering the
organisation through calm or treacherous waters.