Dovetail Software Blogs: Business and IT Are Oceans Apart
“But
one of the barriers to this being instituted is IT simply doesn’t know
enough about how the company makes money. Just as few people on the
business side understand the intricacies and challenges their IT
counterparts face.
“So the ability to pursue innovation
effectively all goes back to communication and collaboration. If our
colleagues in business don’t understand our technical decisions – and
if we don’t get a handle on their business strategy – we might as well
be outsourcer/outsourcee working on opposite sides of the ocean.”
Call Center a Case Study in Employee Accountability
“Many
business leaders are afraid that if they allow employees to set their
own goals, they purposely will set them low to make life easier for
themselves. But that is not what happened at the TAC.
When the management team got employees involved in discussing what
needed to be done to increase customer satisfaction and to set a goal
they thought was achievable, they set the goal far higher than their
managers thought was realistic: 96 percent satisfaction.
“Not only did they achieve the goal—they exceeded it. Almost every month for the past five years, TAC has achieved 100 percent customer satisfaction. The reason is simple: employees own the results.”
SOA Development
“There is however some important distinctions for SOA
versus prior component based development approaches. Certainly the
development tools present a new learning curve, but also the
development techniques change as well. There should be less focus on
system function and more focus on business process – process driven
versus function driven. For example, in stead of building a finance
system to address the functional needs of the finance department we
build finance services that can be consumed across multiple business
processes.”
Barriers to Outsourcing Business Intelligence
“Furthermore,
enterprises—in many cases—still do not approach BI strategically, and
thus their BI requirements and capabilities remain poorly understood.
This is a significant barrier to having a clear understanding of which
areas of BI organizations may benefit from outsourcing.”
How Different Are The Rules for Billion Dollar Outsourcing Deals?
“(AstraZeneca) is saying, this is what we want to achieve. How you do that is your responsibility. Off you go.
“Keaton’s
law firm says ‘this is among the first of a “new breed” of outsourcing
agreements based on desired outcome or “service effect”. This new style
of outsourcing agreement allows the outsourcer greater autonomy on
methods of delivery.’”
CEO Geeks Rule
“If
you want to have a better company, IT is a base resource, that must be
leveraged to make better decisions, grow the company faster, and
generally support the business.
“There are few real
studies that back up this assertion, so the new one quoted by business
week should be on every manager’s desk this morning. Especially if the
IT department is estranged from the company. Something to think about,
grow faster by incorporating IT better, or grow slower by letting IT be
on its own in some small dark corner of the company. “
Want business influence? You may already have more than you think!
“He
pointed out that many people in IT departments have more influence over
business decisions and behaviors than they think. As a result, they
don’t craft and exploit this influence, so it’s often
counter-productive. Putting it another way, they are unintentionally
influencing their colleagues in the wider business to behave in a way
that does nobody any good.”
