Loud Thinking

Is There a Gap Between IT and Your Business?

In many companies there’s a chasm between information technology (IT) groups and business teams, which don’t always consider IT a major player. Businesses would be better served by leveraging every byte of knowledge IT can bring.
Give IT a fair chance. When a company changes systems, people often blame IT for imposing something on them. Or business silos complain that “systems don’t talk,” when the root issue is that siloed departments don’t talk. It’s easy to blame IT, but matters are rarely that simple.
Business teams should ask, “How do we expect IT to help us compete?” Critical investment in technology is about building organizational capabilities. Few information technologies qualify as strategic — they will likely be out of date in five years — but developing the ability to keep pace with the technology curve must be viewed as a strategic goal.

Adapted by HBR from “Bridging the Gap Between IT and Your Business” by Thomas C. Redman and Bill Sweeney.