When the business side is working off one agenda and the IT department another, count on missed opportunities -- and worse. IT professionals tell how they keep up with their companies' business strategies
A growing business is in for a tough time if a strategic corporate goal is to increase the amount of business it does with each customer by 5% annually, while the IT department's main objective is to custom-build a human capital management application. Wouldn't a better use of everyone's time be to focus on implementing a customer relationship management system, enhancing call center operations, or providing mobile devices to its sales force?
Alas, the IT-business disconnect too often exists in companies of all sizes. But it's a particularly dangerous problem for smaller companies that have fewer IT resources to spare. If big initiatives don't roll up to a strategic vision, there's less leeway to make up for lost time in getting new products and services to market. It's no exaggeration to say that a big miss for a small company can spell its demise. The Small Business Administration reports that only 44% of new employer establishments survive at least four years. In 2006, it notes, almost as many businesses closed (564,900) as new firms launched (649,700).
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A Fundamental Disconnect
There are plenty of reasons the vision and goals of business and IT groups don't always mesh. The chief IT person in a small business may be more tech geek than strategic thinker. Perhaps she doesn't have good tools for juggling and managing the flow of new projects and maintenance work to ensure that high-priority to-dos get high-priority attention. Meanwhile, the CEO might not understand the importance of IT to every business effort -- or even if he does, perhaps he's never pushed to create formal channels of collaboration between IT and business groups. The IT department is left to clear its own path and hope that at some point, the road it's building will intersect with the business' main highway.
Atul Mistry, VP and CTO at DxCG Inc., a predictive modeling software company that provides customers such as health care providers, insurers, government agencies, and employers with the tools to improve health outcomes and contain costs, knows firsthand about those communication challenges. "In all honesty, our communication on the senior management side isn't very good," he says. "Often, the direction changes or a decision to purchase a company gets done and IT finds out about it secondhand."
With responsibility for the development of technology initiatives, including the company's core application suite and integrating acquired technology into that product, Mistry keeps his ears open so as not to miss the sound of the business engine revving on something big. For instance, when he talks with customers about helping them connect to the network to access their data, he goes beyond the tech specs to find out more details about their projects and uses that information to better understand how the clients' concerns and plans might affect DxCG's corporate agenda.
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