Skip to main content

Make IT Work

Make IT work; this is by the way the title of a book that was written at the end of the 90’s by 16 senior students of Business Economics associated to the Erasmus University in Rotterdam and supported by Arthur D.Little consultancy under the umbrella of a Management information technology project. During this project, an extensive research was carried out over a period of more than one year in Netherlands and United States. Companies such Pepsico, IBM, 3M, Unilever, Shell, Singapore Airlines, HP and many other big corporations were visited and assessed by the project team.

As a result of this extensive exercise the team ended up defining an IT framework that is supporting any IT organization to develop and implement an IT strategy in clear alignment with the business. Furthermore, the book describes in detail every stage of the processes, comparing with best practices observed in the organizations that were visited during the research project. 



Although recognizing there are other interesting readings you can make over the IT strategy subject, the “Make IT Work” is the one that in my experience better support the complex path from the definition of an IT Strategy to the point you can operationalize it. Starting from the McFarland theorem and the related systems evolution matrix, moving to the Mackinsey 7s Framework, the Canvas Framework for IT value proposition and more recently the COBIT framework, all of them supporting in a certain degree the different needs you might have regarding the definition, control and follow-up of an IT Strategy and related management processes.  

The “Make IT Work” is a very interesting reference document for any IT Director / CIO searching for a practical and straight forward management tool that helps the organization to improve the way IT has understood the business needs and its positioning towards a better strategic alignment.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

IT Metrics - CIO Agenda and challenges

Today’s role of CIO is probably the hardest and complex role you can find in any business organization.  A CIO has to properly combine multiple skills and competences to become effective on the way he/she manage both, business and IT requirements. This is to me the main difference when comparing the CIO’s role with other C-level executives. While the COO, CFO, etc. are mainly focusing on their own areas of responsibility (Operations, Finance, Marketing, etc.), the CIO has to drive a complex agenda to accommodate IT related matters to what the rest of the business organization require from them. This is one of the reasons why IT/IS has always been seen from the rest of the business as support function and not as an add value activity by itself, unless when we talk about technology or innovation companies where IT is perceived as a key business driver.   Today’s CIO has to drive business processes innovation in a way that the rest of the C-level c...
Post a Comment
Read more

IT Metrics - IT positioning at business level

An IT department has to be technology or management driven organization? This is a key question mark for many CEOs when confronted with the need to bring their own IT organizations to a different level of maturity. If he decides in favor of a technology driven organization then the IT department and its responsible person will be normally subordinated to someone at the Company Board level. In Europe the Finance Director is one of the first and common choices that many companies are following, as historically the Finance Director – CFO has been in charge of large company projects having high financial impact. If on the contrary the CEO decides that there is a clear need for the business organization to improve the overall IT performance then he will take the decision to bring his Head of IT to the Board level position. This dilemma differs between regions when comparing the number of companies in Europe having the IT responsible at the Company board level with oth...
Post a Comment
Read more

IT Metrics - How we should manage Information Technology

The management of IT must be based on three key elements; - Focusing on expertise - Ensuring business integration - Generating a new breed of innovative strategic thinking Nowadays the Time to Market concept is a major business requirement, not only for the Fast Consumer goods companies but for all the business that really desire to be succeed in a very competitive and changing environments, hence the need for the IT departments to organize their own resources focusing mainly on a primary activity or function. Doing that way we will increase efficiency (by reducing development and deployment required times) but also effectiveness (maximising the project benefits by reducing costs throughout the entire innovation funnel). Integration with the rest of the business in an intimate relationship is also key as it will increase business knoledge and sense of belonging. The first one is a fundamental enabler for IT organization to properly and timely traslate business requirem...
Post a Comment
Read more