Shikarishambu on Software & Related Services

Pretty much all companies these days claim that IT is **very** important to their business, offers competitive advantage, blah-blah-blah… All these companies and the IT vendors were very upset with Nicholas Carr for suggesting that “IT doesn’t matter.” However, it has been my experience that there are broadly two kinds of companies – ones that are “IT Enabled” and ones that are “IT Driven.” To put it simply, being “IT Enabled” is good and being “IT Driven” is not so good (may even be bad).

So, what do I mean by “IT Enabled”? An “IT Enabled” organization is one where the business strategy and business processes are defined, communicated and adopted without the involvement of IT systems. The IT systems enable the employees to complete the business process faster, better and even improve the business processes. This is an organization where every group, department, cost/profit center knows its role in the business process, communicates and co-ordinates with other groups without relying on IT systems. This is an organization that has a clear understanding of where it is going, how IT can help it and engages IT early and often. The IT organizations in these companies do have an opportunity to make a difference to the company’s bottomline and/or topline and often they do. You may have interacted with some of the companies – where you ask customer support for something simple but special and they know how to complete the request. No, the IT system may not have been built for it but they know the business process. They know who to call to get the answer.

An “IT Driven” organization, on the other is one where the business process is defined as part of the systems/ application development and it is communicated as part of the systems rollout. Needless to say, in these organizations IT plays a very reactive role and the employees do not have a full understanding of the entire process. The only documentation of the business process is possibly in one of the documents created to build the application. These organizations tend to be very reactive, often silo-ed and rely on IT systems/ applications to “communicate” across groups, departments etc…The IT organizations in the companies are constantly in a reactive mode with no/limited insight into the company strategy and strategic initiatives.

Guess what, there are a whole lot more of “IT Driven” organizations than “IT Enabled” organizations. Having the capability is not enough. What you do with the capability is what will differentiate you from the rest.