The challenge for IT is to move as quickly as its internal customers, specifically sales and marketing, need to move. This is made more difficult by the historical position of IT as a keeper of record rather than as driver of business process. While some CIOs embrace the ability to work alongside the line-of-business partners, others struggle with the transition.
Scott Klososky, partner in Future Point of View, LLC, offers three areas in which all C-Suite executives share responsibility for managing needed transitions. Klososky explains:
- “Technology Governance: Most IT organizations have not transformed their governance processes from older IT environments to newer cloud-based, fast-moving systems of engagement. Without a robust method of working with the business to identify innovative IT ideas, turn those ideas into well formed projects with a clear ROI, set priorities, and then resource the projects, there is the potential for friction when speed is a factor. Having a distributed office structure where each satellite location has its own unique needs and requirements further complicates lack of sophisticated governance.
- Cloud Transition Model: Few organizations have a well thought out, long-term plan for using the cloud strategically. We have clients who have lingering internal confusion over what kinds of data and applications are "allowed" to be in the cloud, IT departments who are actively hostile about moving infrastructure, and business side leaders who have zero knowledge as to what is possible. The faster a healthy strategy is developed and agreed upon across the entire organization, the better.
- Transformation from Systems of Record to Systems of Engagement: More technology dollars are being spent on customer-facing technology tools critical to driving revenue. This changes how the underlying infrastructure must be set up, rights management and security policy. Because IT departments were built to support systems of record, they often struggle to work with departments (i.e sales and marketing) who, by necessity, are forced to move faster, and make more changes in their technology tools. In a distributed environment, the IT department must be able to help set standards for data and platforms, while also working with many small vendors to allow for customer engagement tools to grow. To the extent an IT department cannot make this adjustment, the sales and marketing departments will build their own technology capabilities, or simply outsource all of their infrastructure needs.”
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