Running IT as the Business Growth Engine

 The full digital potential of the business cannot be unleashed until IT is empowered to create a differentiated business advantage.

IT organizations are at the crossroad, either continue to be a commodity IT service provider or reinvent itself to become a business growth engine. To keep relevant, IT should help the company achieve its business objectives in any way possible. IT has to learn the business; be the business and become the business. Then, you can run IT as the growth engine of the business, suggest and implement IT-enable business solutions that move the company forward.

The first step is forging close relationships with the senior executives and business managers to really understand their goals and plans for expanding the business: It means having IT and business collaborate as equal partners so that strategies, organizations, people, processes, technologies, etc, work in harmony, such that business initiatives, especially those focused on leveraging IT to increase revenues, are successful. Make sure the executive team first understands what it needs to drive future business growth, recognizes that IT is roughly coupled to the business strategy, and it is a very good sign about how the companies will deliver value, as well as how IT can unlock the business potential by driving changes and catalyzing business innovation. Information executives have to be hand-in-glove with the business owners to map out the vision or strategy. If IT and the business aren't working together toward the same goals, and then, the end result will be diminished. This is especially true in today’s world where the global business environment, organizations, and technology are continuing to experience dramatic changes at an accelerated pace.

Put the framework in place to map the strategic objectives into KPIs: CIOs need to maximize IT value via strategic and tactical alignment with the business. The traditional understanding of IT strategy has been shifted from supporting the functional level of business strategy to be the core of designing business strategies and creating the differentiated marketing value. IT has to be an integral part of driving business value, they can do so by marrying technology with strategy. Operations leaders and IT leaders and their teams develop the feedback mechanisms and willingness to find solutions that can support both the business need and build any ROI required to justify the business case. Overall, IT-driven business value, therefore, has to be judged at the enterprise level considering the overall satisfaction over each combination of cost, schedule, performance, and satisfaction of the customer, user, and each stakeholder. Launch innovative delivery channels for improving sales revenues, and then determine what information and technology investment will accelerate the changes or business profitability you want to achieve in the performance indicators. IT leaders need to do a better job of articulating the existing and potential value of IT to the business, quantitatively, in a language and measurement senior executives understand.

IT can work cross-functionally and drive business value in myriad ways: CIOs need to establish and communicate the forward-looking vision, match the demands of the business and customer; and weave all important business components such as people, structure, process, and technology into the differentiated business competencies to achieve high-performance business results. IT-enabled operational excellence allows varying business functions such as sales, marketing, service, and fulfillment components to continue delivering the cash-cow aspects of the business. Effective IT management means understanding every island of business operation and every important workflow process. It is through the comprehensive understanding of the business, CIO would be able to identify true cost savings, workflow optimizations, and additional revenue opportunities by approaching the multifaceted IT objectives such as standardization, rationalization, consolidation, integration, improvement, and innovation. CIOs must look into opportunities for businesses and then see what IT can do to grow the business and catalyze innovation. CIOs should also work with the business on plugging revenue leakages. The success of IT innovation should be evaluated on how IT is able to deliver innovative products or services, helps to reinvent the business model and solve problems creatively.

With the increasing speed of changes and high expectation of customers, to keep IT relevant for the long run, IT shouldn’t just spend all resources on gaining some short-term result. It’s critical to manage a healthy “run, grow, and transform” portfolio, manage IT as the growth engine and change agent of the company. The full digital potential of the business cannot be unleashed until IT is empowered to create a differentiated business advantage.

Posted in: IT Innovation,IT Transformation