The Power of IT Drives Businesses Forward

One of the most overused terms I've heard in the past few years as CEO of an IT consulting and staffing firm has to be the word "alignment." Think about it. How many times have you heard phrases like, "IT must learn to align with the business" or that "smart CIOs know that in order to succeed, IT must align with the business"?

Not only are these phrases overused and condescending, they are as well statements with which I wholeheartedly disagree. If you are merely aligning with the business, you are not doing enough. IT drives efficiencies. IT enables business. IT powers business success. The goal is not merely to align, however to get in front of the business goals and spearhead growth through at once generation products and customer service.

By its very definition, "align" means to fall in line. To get behind. It suggests that the business sets the pace. It sets the strategy. In aligning, IT must fall directly behind, and keep pace with, the business.

IT does drive and enable business. It's time for IT leadership to drive that point home. Many of our customers get this. One of our insurance customers, for instance, proudly touts IT's efforts in developing its mobile app development. IT rallied others to join them in their efforts while Hurricane Katrina to issue real-time checks and to deliver much-needed funds to those most critically in need. In such a case, IT led the effort. IT delivered the research. The business grew stronger and benefited from this leadership.

What he sees as semantics

CIO Benny Kirsh takes issue with what he sees as semantics, noting the "fine line between 'aligning with' and 'driving' business." However, he has always led forward-thinking, innovative IT teams. While his tenure as CIO at Kyphon, IT drove the implementation of a quality assurance system assuring compliance to FDA regulatory requirements. The initiative reduced time-to-close complaints by 35 per cent and increased on-time user training from 55 per cent to 97 per cent. The implementation included automated documentation and version control, providing a compliant working environment leading to minor discrepancies while FDA audits. In accordance with his watch, the business was able to increase sales and reduce costly FDA responses. Call it alignment, call it driving business -- Kirsh doesn't pay much mind to what you call it. "IT must be proactive and come up with great ideas on how to generate more revenue or make processes more efficient to impact the bottom line."

One of our retail customers reflects back just a few years on the organization's business-led approach to e-commerce. The company's leadership assumed successful sales of its items -- as a general rule furniture and higher-end appliances -- were nearly exclusively dependent upon its extensive network of brick and mortar retail stores, with second-tier marketing support coming from its physical catalogs. Management realized that an online catalog was a minimum expectation for mid-to-large retailers. They operated in a mode that viewed e-commerce as a third-tier support function for the brick and mortar operations. The IT team was charged with meeting that minimum expectation with limited budget and resources. The e-commerce/IT team maximized their resources to create an attractive, user-friendly online catalog. At the time, something interesting happened...Following the "if you build it, they will come" model, online sales grew to 50 per cent of the company's total annual earnings.

True leaders are bold and take risks. In order to develop this culture of technology within your IT organization, you must put yourself out there with the rest of the business. Sell your ideas for technology, at the time execute. Afterwards even a single small win, it will be easier to continually steer these innovative ideas up the organizational ladder. Reward creativity. Now, most importantly, market your accomplishments. Positive PR will spur additional creativity, one win at a time.

CIO and Portfolio Strategist Gene Irvine believes that IT must be made a part of the business. He urges his peers to allow their teams time to play with new technologies. Provide time for white-boarding sessions. Calculate it into budgets. If IT is not keeping up on innovation or given the time to read, all they become are "droids" or task doers. He considers it a leadership requirement to provide a workplace that fosters business idea generation.

The organization knows about the business

It is leadership's responsibility to make sure everyone in the organization knows about the business; what's going on. This does encourage people to think outside of the box in bringing forward suggestions. At times it's as simple as tasking someone to go work with the biz user to fix a problem. They may hear 10 more problems. Brainstorm with the business to make this relationship stronger, Irvine suggests. Consider upstream and downstream implications.

But, he cautions, you don't need money to reward/encourage technology. Awards, praise and recognition are always effective. Ask business leaders to pop in at a staff meeting from place to place. Importantly, implement. Be open to research.

And then and there time you hear someone say that IT needs to align with the business, I hope you can tell them how IT is driving your business forward.

Read on about how HPS Pharmacies wanted to upgrade its disaster recovery capabilities and improve business continuity. Working with Comunet, the company deployed PlateSpin Forge® and PlateSpin® Protect from Novell-providing rapid failover for the main data centre and individual in-store systems in case of disaster.

Join CIO and your peers - CIOs of Australia's top corporate organisations for the most prestigious CIO networking event of 2010.

Be whisked away on a private luxury charter across Sydney Harbour to the fabulous Mosman Gunners Barracks for an evening of fine food, cocktails & peer-to-peer networking.

The challenge of our rapidly

George will talk about the challenge of our rapidly and monumentally changing world, providing personal insight, historical perspective and political edge for business, educators and governments grappling with the dilemmas of contemporary society - the world that has become George Negus's oyster.

Offers you a wealth of customer case studies,reference guides, IDC and Gartner innovation pieces, market landscape, videos and podcasts. As of November 1st this Resource centre will as well feature the photos, slide show and interviews from the 1st ever CIO HP Cocktail Networking event.

The latest software downloads

Provides you with the latest software downloads, video, whitepapers and news on how you can keep your business data safe.