How Powerful is IT Anymore?
During the late 1990s and early 2000s, IT was an operational differentiator for many organizations. It wasn’t every company who had a sophisticated
application portfolio to enable and support business functions, much less the expertise to keep things moving in the right direction. Because of this, IT held a certain degree of celebrity and had fluid budgets (and headcount) to accompany it. Spending into strength rarely hurts in a competitive environment. ERP made its foothold here.
Then came the beginning of the commoditization curve. The mantras every IT vendor repeated was ‘IT-business alignment’, which meant that IT’s unbridled Vegas bender was over, CIOs were onto various shenanigans, and IT needed to start justifying its spend and strategic direction. But it was still terribly important: IT was a key stakeholder in ever vendor negotiation, every RFP decision, every board meeting.
Now, in quasi-post-recession 2010, when we’re learning that executive spending/signature powers have been dramatically reduced and companies are sitting on mountains of cash but still afraid to spend, I have to wonder. Budgets are still tight – a poltergeist from from 2009’s recession mindset? – and it appears that even the ‘IT-business alignment’ affirmation from six years ago is fading. Instead, we see IT taking a clearly subservient role to business drivers; it seems that IT, unto itself, no longer has the power to drive its own direction unless in tow with a powerful business leader. And increasingly companies are asking paradigm questions – SaaS v. on-premise, for starters – as they contemplate what will happen next. IT has never been more full of framework-level, worldview-defining decisions.
Now, whether IT’s changed role is a wholesale mindset bump or just the ultimate maturation of ‘IT-business alignment’ is up for debate. At the very least, IT’s role in the organization has undergone considerable change and commoditization. At the worst, its role has been firmly supplanted by more business-facing drivers. It’s hard to say which based on our conversations with clients, but there seems to be a trend.
I’m not trying to provide a brief history of IT in American business as I see it; rather, this is an open question as far as I’m concerned.
In your eyes, how powerful is IT these days, especially as it relates to the bygone days of IT glory? I’m genuinely interested in your perspective.
Answer in the comments, if you will. Thanks.
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