IT/IS Strategy

“IT is an engine of innovation, and is the foundation for growth”

In today’s business environment, companies must maximize shareholder value through capturing, sharing and exploiting knowledge. It is increasingly difficult to keep pace with the rate of technology change and yet, success depends upon it.

Technology is now integrated with the business, not just as part of the architecture of the organization or the supply chain, but as an indivisible component of the service or product that an enterprise sells.

This trend has developed as a result of the transition to an information economy, where technology provides more than just efficiency: it is an enabler and driver of new ways of doing business. IT is influencing the way in which organizations think and behave – it is changing the way they exist. There has been a collapse of traditional organizational boundaries as organizations work in new, ‘virtual’ ways.

One of the more dramatic impacts of IT is as an accelerator of change. This makes the business leader’s role even more daunting; not only has the spectrum of strategic decisions become wider, but the risks associated with incorrect or delayed decisions are being magnified by the rate of change.

We are now in a new environment where the only business leaders that are likely to emerge as winners are those who grasp and exploit the full potential of IT.

There can no longer be a separation between IT-driven business change and business-driven IT change – you can only go forward by considering both together.