Whose problem is it anyway?

A recent article by David Moschella in Computerworld further reinforces that, while we clearly still have many areas for improvement within the IT world, the major areas for improvement lie with how the business manages their use of IT.

In a joint survey with the Financial Times, Computerworld interviewed 400 U.S. and European executives, half from business, half from IT, and all from large corporations. Amongst a large number of questions, they asked, "Which of the following is the biggest barrier to your company's use of IT?" The four possible answers, and the results for IT and non-IT executives, are provided below.

ANSWERS:

• The IT department’s lack of understanding of business issues: CIOs 6% CXOs 11%


• Business people’s inability to understand what can and can’t be done with IT: CIOs 41% CXOs 42%


• The inability of the business to change in order to take advantage of new IT capabilities: CIOs 44% CXOs 32%

If we are to come anywere near to realizing the full potential of IT-enabled change, it is not enough to fix the problems within IT. The IT function must reach out to engage the business and help them to understand what they must do to optimise the value from THEIR investments in IT-enabled change.

Click on the title line of this post to follow the link to read the full Computerworld article.