In my last article, I stated that in order for Information Technology to start providing real business value, it must become an integral part of the strategic planning and overall decision making processes of your business.
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However for this step to have the desired impact, it’s imperative to have the right people in place who can understand both what the business wants and what the technology can deliver, and are capable of seeing how to bring these together in execution. In other words, the organisational design of the IT function must itself be carefully put together to support business requirements, but how is this achieved?
The aim is that the IT leader needs to be at least a junior member of the strategic leadership team. However simply giving this person an executive level title and having them attend more strategic meetings will not suddenly transform them into an invaluable business resource.
Often people confuse the title of a person with actual seniority in the business, whereas in fact finding the right person to fill this difficult role is the real challenge.
The results which we are looking for, bridging the business-IT divide in order to align your technology efforts with your business objectives, can only be achieved with employees with the right skillsets and, more importantly, mindsets.
The IT leader who is elevated to this strategic level must be provided the time and have the aptitude to be able to work with their new peers. One who will be able to quickly grasp the business goals and then craft a technology solution capable of supporting these.
All too often we find that SMEs have attempted to develop or hire in a Unicorn capable of marrying these functions, and then swamp this rare resource with the operational ICT platform duties.
This approach achieves little but to clog this staff member’s schedule with hands-on support functions just like your classic IT support technician, and yet the business continues to expect this same individual to be able to immerse themselves in the business to provide critical strategic input.
So not only is it about finding the right people, it is also imperative that the Information Technology function in your business is structured in such a way that the IT leader has the capacity to give their strategic planning functions their full and undivided attention.
Of course there are also many SMEs who simply do not have the luxury of being able to fulfill all their technology needs by hiring the right mix of often expensive employees. For businesses in this situation, outsourcing functions to external vendors with the appropriate resources is an excellent way of bolstering the workforce already on the payroll.
Select your vendor wisely, and not only can this free up internal resources and complement non-existent internal skills, but this provider itself can significantly contribute towards achieving your business goals. Often the holistic view of your business that an external vendor takes gives insights which someone who is already a part of your office structure may miss.
