Balancing Cost, Risk, Growth & Innovation: New Principles of IT Investment

Wednesday June 23, 2010

Summary:

 New realities of IT investment or New Principles of IT investment, a new theme at Gartner.

The webinar presenter Barbara Gomolski stated,…” Gartner has been doing this analysis for the past two and half years,… aligning their clients around the new economic situation.”

Gartner observed that their clients IT investment behaviors were different than before the economic downturn.

Currently three focus areas of Gartner’s clients are; the organization is asking IT to help “innovate and grow” the business, the second is to use the information available to help make IT and the rest of the organization more “efficient”. The third is to help management to “better understand risk”.

Barbara continued by declaring that most businesses still operate in “Silos”, meaning that Innovation and Growth initiatives were doing their own “thing”, Cost and value initiatives were doing their own “thing”, Risk initiatives were doing their own “thing” and the business was not truly an integrated effort.

Today’s requirements in business are to break down these “Silos” especially the unnamed “Silo” between IT and the business.  Barbara added that Gartner is seeing business starting to do this by realigning IT within the business and drawing on core IT competencies like business process management, decisions port, or business intelligence instead of the traditional technology based structure.

Gartner is observing a change in “IT Governance” in many organizations which evolves into “Business Change Governance”.  Not making decisions about just the IT department, but about business and how changes in technology are driving the business decision direction. Bringing IT as it were into the “adult” conversation within business decisions. These decisions are being done in the area of Enterprise Architecture. Companies will be looking at change in a holistic fashion with more involvement from the stakeholders.

Meat and Potatoes:

Companies are pressed on all sides, and are asking those who are still left in the organization to do more.  I’ve heard this cry from business twenty years ago, “cut cost”, “generate innovation”, but now there are less people to do so. It’s possible that a restructuring/realigning of IT could actually bring this about!

 

Conclusion:

If IT is given a “seat “at the grown-ups table, then business may move closer to realizing the synergy they have been taking about for years.