COMMENTARY--Do you really need to be told the importance of aligning IT and business strategies? Or are you getting sick of being told the obvious?
A couple of months ago I had a bit of a rant about technology vendors coming up with complicated phrases to describe their offerings. Well this time around it isn't vendor speak that is driving me crazy, it's media speak.
I'm the kind of person that can't stand being told something that I already know--it just wastes my time and insults my intelligence. I get very frustrated when I am ready to go onto the next point, yet my colleague, manager, or teacher is still stuck on the old one. Let's move on! Time's a wastin'!
So it drives me nuts when I find myself continually seeing the same ending to nearly every technology feature I read. The phrase of the moment that I am talking about is the often-mentioned need to align IT projects with the business strategy.
Pick an IT issue, any issue, from Linux in the enterprise to installing a wireless network, from ERP rollouts to disaster recovery--did you know that when any of these issues come up for discussion in your company, before you give it the go-ahead you really should ensure the project is aligned with the business goals?
You already knew that, huh? Kind of obvious isn't it? It would be a waste of company money and your time if you went off and worked on a project that really didn't benefit the business. So if you already know that, then why do journalists, technology vendors, and analysts keep talking about it?
So imagine my surprise at the reader feedback we received recently. We polled some of our newsletter readers and one of the questions we asked was "what are you currently losing sleep over?" and a common response was "strategic alignment".
Wha??? And here I thought we were ready to move on to the next topic!
But I guess it is one thing to talk about alignment and another to actually do it. Big projects like ERP and CRM have been getting a bad rap over the last 12 months or so, and this is because so many of these projects failed. Companies caught up in the excitement of all the great benefits these projects could bring got on board only to meet with lengthening deadlines, budget escalation, angry users, and software that wasn't bringing the business benefits that everyone thought it would.
| And what is everyone now touting as the reason it all went wrong? lack of strategic alignment of course. |
So it seems we have found the cause of the problem, but that doesn't mean we are necessarily any better at fixing it or making sure it doesn't happen again.
From all accounts, companies are being more cautious now, and those bigger projects have given way to smaller projects where ROI is expected within 12 to 18 months. The approval process is more stringent, and you now see CEOs and CFOs negotiating with technology vendors.
However it doesn't take much for a project to quickly go off the rails. The daily task of ensuring the project is being kept in alignment with the business generally ends up with you. Hence the constant references to that dreaded phrase in every article, just in case you forget.
But I have come to the conclusion that you no longer need the reminder... judging by the feedback we received, it already seems to be at the forefront of your minds. Instead, it is probably time to start finding the best ways of achieving that. So if you have any tips or strategies you use, or even some what-not-to-do tips, we would love to hear them.
In another topic, I attended a debate last month on information versus technology. Run by storage company EMC, it invited four of its partners to do the debating: the local chief executives of Intel, Oracle, Microsoft, Dell, and of course EMC.
It had all the elements of success--well organised, good topic, and good speakers--unfortunately it isn't much of a debate when the involved parties use it as a forum to hype their own businesses. We heard that the future of information was all about storage, the database, security, mobile computing, and supply chain management. No prizes for guessing who said what.
And from all reports, the recent OracleWorld held in the US had a similar problem. Instead of a debate on the future of grid computing, some speakers used it as a platform to bag out their competitors.
Isn't there enough confusion in this industry already? Who is up for a vendor-neutral debate on aligning IT with business goals?
Natalie Hambly is Assistant Editor of Technology & Business.
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