Strategic potential: how your IT team went from artisans of magic to reliable stability

Information Technology has come a long way since the days of a business having a single PC stuck away in the corner processing invoices and purchase orders and occasionally being used to browse the very limited content of the internet. And yet, in some ways, the mindset of business itself has not moved very far beyond these out-of-sight days.

In the past 10 years Information Technology teams and industry as a whole have done a good job to transform from artisans of the magic of technology / “fly by the seat of your pants” services to providing a stable and reliable platform upon which a modern business is effectively built.

The Information Technology behind your business often goes far beyond the functions generally thought of when discussing “IT”. The ubiquitous acronym has come to represent only a few functions which the industry delivers today: desktops and their software, servers, recurring internet connectivity costs, and costly staff working on expensive projects – which misses the real value and opportunities.

The Information Technology function (all the more also being called the Business Technology or even just Technology function) within your business, however, includes all aspects of people, processes and technology.

More and more, the view of business about Information Technology is shifting from “My (often insert expletive here…) IT/computer/email is (again) not working!!” to “Ok, I have this Technology platform, it is generally stable and I recognise that I cannot work without it anymore, but there must be a way it can now help me to run my business better.”

Standing in the way of this elusive goal is the business-IT divide, a division which the technology industry has been speaking of for many years but has still not managed to bridge. It is this divide which keeps technology from becoming a strategic asset integrated with the overall business goals, and which keeps business from relying on IT when pushing to uncover more opportunities.

Large enterprises are already shifting in to this new gear of getting business and technology integrated, and some are starting to realise the potential still untapped. However our core business is the SME, companies with between 30 and 300 computer users, and there are no real answers to be found anywhere for them.

This article is the first in a series that I will be writing, focusing specifically on the questions this type of business needs to be asking to derive more business value using Information Technology.

To close this article, I want to point out that it is important to note one needs a stable Information Technology platform to start asking this question about business value. If you as a business are not there yet, this is the first steady state that has to be reached. If you are or are generally interested in closing the business-IT divide, then what I intend to publish over the next several weeks will be relevant to you.