A paradigm shift of sorts is taking place. Once the key driver of business, IT is now one of a few important enablers.
Undoubtedly this is quite a mind-shift if compared to the late 90s where the imminent doom of Y2K saw more than one organisation rushing to ensure 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 led 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 a 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 to 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 90s 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," said Jan Moolman, BI Practice Manager at e.com institute.
The reality is that while 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 the 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 the 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.
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