754 – Nine “Truths” about IT
in 2003
- Connectivity
and access provide new organizational opportunities. Organizations can change internally –
across functional silos – or externally by forming partnerships across
organizational borders. Some
organizations won’t change at all.
- Expanded
and additional business models are being enabled by technology. There are simply more businesses you
can be in.
- IT
used to be a support function. It
still is, but it can also be a strategic function as some businesses choose
to use IT for competitive advantage.
Businesses need to identify their role for IT and to staff and lead
accordingly.
- IT
projects are moving from single ad hoc projects to infrastructure
investments. The former had
limited scope; the latter can be leveraged to provide improvements in
operations, strategic partnerships, and employee knowledge.
- It
projects of any consequence create organizational change. Successful change can be facilitated by
managing the innovation process.
- Most
IT systems should be bought rather than made, not just to save money, but
to adhere to industry standards.
This obviously changes the role of the IT professional.
- IT has
already gone through three areas of business focus. Experience in one era may blind
business leaders to the needs and opportunities of the latest era. Don’t ask a COBOL coder to help you
develop a supply chain system.
- We are
now dependent upon real-time systems.
Failure is not acceptable.
Much of the current effort in IT systems is not to make them more
functional, but to make them more bullet-proof.
- We
assume connectivity anywhere and any time. The business and personal impacts of this are first being
felt.