Saturday, November 2, 2019

IT as a Leverage in Multitude of Digital Management

Running digital IT is both art and science, a progressive journey and a cautious tale. 

Velocity, complexity, and uncertainty will characterize the future. High mature digital organizations today need to be sophisticated enough to act intelligently and nimble enough to adapt to changes promptly. The digital transformation is like a gigantic juggernaut puzzle with many misplaced pieces. It is important to leverage IT in multitude of digital management, involve not only putting different pieces together but also blending them in such a way that the emergent whole is somehow more than the sum of its parts.

IT Leverage in business strategy management: Traditional IT organizations often focus on enabling and supporting the strategic goals of the business while managing things like technical change, complexity, and compliance. But to reinvent IT as a trustful business partner, IT strategy needs to be integrated into the business strategy and IT is the business inside the business. If IT strategic goals are derived from the business strategic planning process then all key players are more likely to be truly engaged, aligned and accountable.

Plus, Information Technology is one of the most time-intensive pieces of digital innovation. Innovation is a critical component of the business strategy. Whether the focus is finance or marketing or anything else, almost all business models today leverage information & technology in its business strategy/processes. Thus, CIOs should share their technological vision, advocate future trends and build IT reputation as a trustful business partner. Foresight is an ongoing conversation. CIOs are able to listen to a wide range of opinions and approaches and understand the extent to which digital information technologies enable people to manage a highly integrated business ecosystem of shareholders and operate as an effective business partner.

IT leverage in Change Management: Due to the high frequency of changes and digital disruptions, organizational change management has a strong role in strategy execution, business transformation, and benefits realization. CIOs shouldn’t get pushed for the changes, they are actually in a better position to play a role as a change agent and digital orchestrator because Change Management is a cross-functional management practice following the logical steps with IT as linchpin.

Because organizational change becomes a common practice within an organization, Change Management needs to be treated as a strategic management capability to reach its full advantage. Digital CIOs are capable of evolving change leadership skills to not only match the pace with the changes in technology and the pace at which the organization can effectively manage these changes, but also proactively drive changes and digital transformation.

Riding ahead of the change curve takes both principles and practices, strategy and methodology. For IT-driven changes, CIOs with digital awareness should understand how to capture digital technology trends and apply abundant information and right technology to meet the business’s needs.


IT leverage in performance/potential management: All company’s performance is directly related to the decisions people make every day, from executives to the frontline, across functional areas and regions. Performance management facilitates the flow of the right information to the right people at the right time to make the right decisions. IT is related to general organizational performance and effectiveness (value creation / cost levels) IT-enabled full business potential is about getting involved in building great products, services or business models by relying less on silo functions and more on cross-functional collaboration and cohesive business competency.

IT can practice the art and science of engineering disciplines, and develop IT applications blended with current digital trends to deliver unique benefits to the business. CIOs should think like the CEO and then, use IT Innovation and technology to drive business value and improve business performance. IT is in a unique position to oversee the underlying business functions and structures, believe the whole is better than the sum of pieces, actively pursue influence to achieve balance, and enable the organization to bring high performance business results.

Information Technology provides an important structure and a strong pillar to build a powerful platform business. Running digital IT is both art and science, a progressive journey and a cautious tale. The traditional management discipline based on linear logic and reductionist thinking is outdated somehow. Nowadays IT is a leverage in multitude of digital management and the threshold to knit all important business elements into a unique set of business competencies.

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