Globally, the digital revolution has impacted enterprises on
an unprecedented scale. Today, the advent of an innovative and agile digital
workplace is imperative to sustaining competitive advantage, driving the
adoption of Big Data and analytics, cloud computing, social media, and mobility
and convergence computing, among other digital technologies. Given the
potential business value that these technologies can unleash, organizations are
proactively leveraging them - in specific focus areas or where strategically
possible, to digitally reimagine their businesses. In this article series I
would like to share with you all what I gained as a knowledge through different
learning mediums and our experience working with customer across the globe.
We're moving into a brave new world where technology
reaches every aspect and every function within a business organization. The
challenge that we're experiencing is that information technology can no
longer just be thrown over the transom to IT people by business people who
then just sit by and wait for something magical to happen. There is
now a need to view IT with as much emphasis on the "I",
"Information", as we've historically placed on the
"T", "Technology". Organizations have spent three
decades building out enterprise systems of record, that is, the first
generation of systems used to digitize basic elements of business, but
we're moving into an era of systems of engagement, by which I mean systems
that are pervasive, that are user-driven, and that touch every
element of our business.
You can sense this pervasive impact of technology by listening
to the perspective of users. For example, process workers are asking us to
stop making them copy-paste the same information in five different
spreadsheets. Knowledge workers are telling us they are drowning in
information but thirsty for knowledge. Security officers are telling us
that information is leaking out of the organization at every turn. Records
managers and lawyers are concerned that the volume of information is
threatening the business with increased risk and increased exposure.
IT executives are concerned that they are being
marginalized and that the business is increasingly working around them rather
than with them. And the C suite is concerned that they will be the
next Blockbuster who misses the arrival of a Netflix innovator because they're
too focused on legacy systems and business models. This article is
intended for IT people, for business executives, for lawyers, for
records managers, in short, for the information professionals of all
stripes, who will be critical in managing the challenging times
ahead.
Systems of record vs. systems of engagement
Let's start with a little history. Systems of record are
the core systems that we put in place during the 70's, 80's, and 90's to
automate the first generation of digital processes. Think of these as the
very initial replacements for paper-based processes. The major
technology eras through which we've evolved, from mainframes to mini
computers to PC's.During the era of mainframes, our primary focus was on
managing batched transactions. This evolved during the minicomputer era into
a focus on managing departmental processes, and in the PC era, the focus
moved to managing documents.
Beginning in the early 2000's, our information systems
began to change. Consumer technology started to be the primary source of
innovation, and individual and users became the primary focus for
technology. This era began with the Internet and the task of managing
webpages, and has since evolved into the mobile and Cloud era, with a
focus on managing interactions and conversations. I call these new mobile
and Cloud technologies "systems of engagement". The
challenge facing today's organizations is to determine how to gradually
minimize spending on legacy systems of record while simultaneously taking
advantage of new systems of engagement, and not losing control in the
process.
Information chaos
Information surrounds us. Documents, emails, videos,
podcasts, voicemails, texts, Tweets, Facebook posts, and LinkedIn
conversations are the informational backbone of our personal and work
lives. I use the phrase "information chaos" to describe this
ongoing and accelerating state of massive information disruption and our
difficulty in effectively utilizing this avalanche of data. Using
information to understand and exceed customer expectations is the
competitive challenge today.
In the face of all this massive change, employees like
Chief Information Officers are increasingly under siege. There is
probably no more vulnerable place to be than CIO in a modern organization. One
newly appointed CIO told me, "CIO ought to stand for Career Is
Over," and as Bob Dylan would say, "You better start
swimming or you'll sink like a stone." Here are some perspectives
from contemporary CEOs about their IT Department and their company's
CIO.Almost half of CEOs feel IT should be a commodity service purchased as
needed.
Only a quarter of executives feel their CIO is
performing above his or her peers. Almost half of CEOs rate their CIOs
negatively in terms of understanding the business. And 57% of
executives expect their IT function to change significantly over the next
three years, with 12% predicting a complete overhaul of IT. On the
one hand, in our digital industrial economy, information has become the
central currency by which organizations create value. On the other,
information chaos is making it more and more challenging to harness that
information effectively.
It's a whole new world of information requiring a new
set of business principles.
The big bang of enterprise systems
The collision between systems of record and
systems of engagement has set off what I like to call an informational big
bang. Think about what enterprise technology systems currently look
like. It's a world where IT acts as a train system, moving huge
volumes of data from A to B on fixed tracks. It's a world where IT reduces
costs by substituting people with technology. Processes are standardized, automating
simple or repetitive processes. Executives are generally oblivious to
technology, and they bolt technology onto existing business strategies
instead of developing new ones.
Complexity equals job security. IT staff pride
themselves on the complexity of their projects. Most spending is CAPEX, in
other words projects that can be capitalized and their costs
stretched out over multiple years. Mobile and social are differentiators, and
even having a mobile and social strategy can at least bring temporary
competitive advantage. And pure technical skills are valued. The
focus is on development, not on integration. Now think about what the
world is likely to look like just within a few years.
IT will act as a logistics medium, allowing information
journeys that are flexible and constantly changing. IT will be
focused on raising value. IT is part of growing revenue, not just cutting
costs. Processes will become agile. The emphasis will shift to how knowledge
workers react and interpret rapidly changing customer information. Executives
will become technology-aware. Personal experiences with technology will be
carried over into the workplace. Executives will develop new business
strategies based on new technologies.
Simplicity will be valued. Perfect and complex solutions
will be replaced by those that are simple and quick to implement. Most
spending will be OPEX. Projects will need to be justified in one quarter, not
across multiple years. Mobile and social will be expected from any
companies, they must have them. And technical skills, in context,
will be valued. Skills in how systems link together will be
increasingly important. When you compare these differences, you can
sense the massive disruption to enterprise IT that is about to occur.
All of this sudden change comes from three major disrupters.
I will cover them in my next article
Image credits: © reborn55 – Fotolia.com
Cheers
DC*
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