Sunday, July 23, 2017

Running a High-Responsive IT Organization

A highly responsive IT means a lot of things for the digital transformation: Speed, innovation, agility, integration, modernization, optimization, intelligence, adaptability, flexibility, and maturity.

Embracing digital is inevitable as that is now part of the business venture. IT organization needs to become the change agent for their company. How responsive could IT be in order to ride learning curves, keep the pace of rapid changes, and accelerate digital transformation?



Breaking down the silo thinking and digitizing the management discipline and practices are the first step for running a high-responsive digital organization: The digital dynamic is where the digital disruption threatens to tear down legacy systems and practices just as it generates new opportunities. It's natural to fear the unknown, question the unproven, be skeptical of the latest technology trends. In today's volatile economy, nothing impedes progress more than protective silos which are simply a form of bureaucratic management style designed to preserve the status quo. If most managers still apply old silo management mindsets to new ways of organizing and the hybrid structure, and this legacy of the old economy limits many digital organizations to unleash their full business potential. The reality is that organizations that do not respond to external environmental changes will quickly outcompete as more innovative enterprises take their customers. Running a high-responsive IT organization also needs to have the flexibility to take the different approach with the adaptability to meet the business’s expectation. Even the speed of change is increasing, businesses still do have contexts of relative certainty, while simultaneously having contexts reflecting both complexity and chaos. Each of these contexts requires a different management approach. Thus, companies across sectors should be flexible to leverage tailored approaches to fit specific circumstances, ultimately respond to the external environment as geopolitics, rapid innovation, and social expectations change the business landscape and blur the digital territories.


High-Mature IT is highly responsive to changes and proactively manage innovation: Traditional IT organizations are perceived as the controller, slow to change based on the fact that most IT organizations still run in a reactive and order-taking mode, get stuck at the lower level of maturity. More and more businesses expect the consumerization style responsiveness from IT, digital IT needs to become the change organization of the company. IT needs to ensure its strategy allowing for digital speed, and agility to be seen by the business as an enabler, not an overhead. Business-engaged CIO is the right type of digital leader to run a proactive IT and keep navigating during rough sea because organizations can implement the business strategy execution through constructive business-IT relationships, ensuring the maturity level of the IT organization matches the requirements of the business strategy. IT is in fact, needs to become the change agent for their company.


IT has to not only improve its own speed and responsiveness but also overall organizational responsiveness and maturity: Running a real-time digital IT organization means high-responsiveness. The goal to run a real-time digital IT organization is to create synergy and achieve digital synchronization of the entire organization. Unfortunately, the majority of IT organizations today are perceived by their business partners as the change laggard with the controller’s mentality. IT needs to do more with innovation and ride the learning curve to drive changes. A large part of the problem for IT transformation is that while there are both long and short-term goals for the business, far too often these goals are in opposition to each other. The tough choice needs to be made - when should you reap the quick win, when shall you focus on long-term growth. The digital CIO today, as the senior business executive should have the ability to see the big picture to ensure the business as a whole is more optimal than the sum of pieces and respond to changes timely. The digital leaders today who can see the bigger picture, abstract the insight from the overloading information, and are not living the day-to-day activities, are needed to clear blind spots, integrate a multitude of viewpoints, and inspire the culture of innovation.


A highly responsive IT means a lot of things for the digital transformation: Speed, innovation, agility, integration, modernization, optimization, intelligence, adaptability, flexibility, and maturity. To run a highly responsive and highly effective IT, IT management must get a feeler of the business view. IT must be measured through business viewpoints. And IT must become an integral part of the business.



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