”’We’re seeing decision-making power for any purchase is shifting out of the I.T. organization to the CFO
or lines of business,’ said analyst Pascal Matzke. ‘Virtually no I.T.
decision is being made without a business case [so] I.T. managers have
to have a sound understanding of the business value of any project or
purchasing decision.’” – Forrester Forum To Advise I.T. Chiefs
For some time now analysts and consultants
have been advising the industry that IT has to become a business unit
within the enterprise, with all the attendant cultural and procedural
change. As Forrester now proclaims, few IT decisions are made anymore
without a solid business case. Does this mean the technological
development path of the company is no longer in the CIO’s hands?
The
answer will vary with different companies, but what’s to be learned
here is that technology is now such a crucial component of business
process that business principles, rather than technical ones, will
dictate all future configurations.
As we have often emphasized, this sea change doesn’t mean the role of IT is diminished. On the contrary, we maintain that IT is more important than ever before. But it has to learn some marketing, because now it must not only turn a profit for the company, it must show that profit.
So perhaps the first place to begin for a CIO
trying to develop business cases for projects is to ask, how do good
marketers go about making profitable ventures? What are the best
practices?
The usual place for a marketer to start any
endeavor is with market research. The same can easily be true for the
enterprise technologist. If IT is a business and all the stakeholders
of the enterprise are its customers, then the first thing IT might do
is find out what its customers want.
We’ve cited with admiration the example of Dell
recently, in its attempt to learn from its customers. As we’ve pointed
out, Dell is catching criticism for its initial stumbling, but what is
missed is that Dell won’t stumble forever. When they get it right,
they’ll move completely into the lead in their markets.
The
customer is now king, and because of this modern technologies from the
Web 2.0 proving ground are required to interact with customers, to
learn from them, and to change in accordance with what’s best for them.
Dell
for example is going far beyond simply surveying its customers to find
out what they want. Dell is embarked upon an internal sea change of its
own, an enterprise-wide reinvention of itself driven by its own
customers.
Web 2.0 provides the tools for collaboration,
and in so doing also shows that innovation proceeds best out of
collaboration. Furthermore collaboration spawns innovation. These are
the lessons that CIOs must absorb.
