I do realize there are probably thousands of blogs out there that try to answer this, but it is such a fun question I thought I’d give it a try. Business partner Jim and I were off last week on a little writing retreat and this was one of our hiking talks… we talked about how IT strategies need to give organizations/ companies focus related to IT, to help make the best decisions about how to invest in technology.
So I was doing yoga tonight in my living room and apparently not effectively concentrating while in pigeon pose, because a book on the shelf underneath my coffee table caught my eye: The Boston Consulting Group On Strategy. Ah, that ended the yoga practice. I don’t know when BCG gifted this to me, but I haven’t yet read it and after a quick flip through I decided it looked pretty good (especially compared to most strategy books). Anyway, I opened it up wondering if it had a perspective on this “what is strategy?” question. Sure enough, BCG’s founder, Bruce Henderson, starts the book working to answer this question. Here’s what he says: “All competitors who persist over time must maintain a unique advantage by differentiation over all others. Managing that differentiation is the essence of long-term business strategy.”
I like this. But it that mean for IT strategy? Many think of IT strategy as the strategy for the IT organization. And many think of the IT organization as a little mini business within a business. If you follow this logic, that organization has historically been the sole provider, but these days, with outsourcing and cloud computing on the rise, that organization does have competitors. So IT strategy for an organization could be how they differentiate against their “competitors”.
But hold on… I like that if I’m a CIO trying to keep my job, but I’m not sure I like it if I’m a CEO trying to do the best thing for my company. From a CEO’s perspective, an IT strategy should more directly state how IT is applied to maintain that unique advantage referenced above over competitors. And part of that unique advantage may be strategically sourcing some or all of the IT organization and moving more of the technology to the cloud, either for cost savings or some other kind of differentiation. And if I’m a good CIO, I’m probably thinking about IT from the CEO’s perspective…
OK, that’s it for now, but this discussion isn’t over… just getting started … feel free to chime in.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
3 comments:
Why is an IT strategy any different than say a Marketing strategy? The Marketing strategy is developed so tools and techniques can be appropriately applied to support the Business' objectives. Costs and investment choices flow out from there within the Business' allocated budget. An IT strategy should do the same thing. Like Marketing, IT's role is to support the business, not be a business unto itself. I think a lot of companies lose sight of this.
I would like to weigh in on this. There is only one strategy, that is, the company or business strategy as you point out. There is a risk to the business when each supporting organization devises a separate functional strategy. Each believe theirs is the differentiator and therefore become silos fighting for funding, resources, etc.
It is more favorable to the business if leaders within each function work together to create long term execution plans that support the overall strategy, ensuring the business objectives are thread throughout.
Based on your philosophy, the planning and execution of the business strategy and defining what that means for IT is the key...
Better late than never here -- The 2 comments above are quite interesting food for thought..I have a slightly different way of looking at things.. I actually think a company's IT strategy should cover 2 different prongs, which are somewhat linked to one another. It should start with an 'external' IT strategy which deals with how a company can leverage IT to develop/maintain a competitive advantage against other firms in the marketplace -- this can be as simple as using IT to increase the processing speed of your back office or something as advanced as the platform which customers use to interact with your business (i.e. ebay's website interface, etc.). The other prong is the 'internal' IT strategy which you reference in your article; how you best deliver your IT to your organization -- this is some combination of internal delivery, outsourcing, and a hybrid model. These internal and external pieces obviously intersect to form the company's overall IT 'strategy'
just my 2 cents
Post a Comment