Business Technology, or BT, is the future direction for IT. IT must rise up
to become BT, and the CIO must rise to become the CBT-the chief business
technologist.
That's from George F Colony, founder and chairman of Forrester Research.
(He was speaking at Hexaware's annual customer meet,
C-Summit, in Arizona, end-September.)
For IT as we know it is changing. It's getting business-critical. It's
not just about information and data any more, but about business. If you pull
out the router in a modern company, business comes to a halt.
Colony gave the analogy of an iceberg: the bulk of it, below the surface, is
commoditized, automated: the IT plumbing. CIOs keep pushing the iceberg down, so
that they can focus on the part above the water, the strategic stuff for the
business.
Is IT in India evolving into BT? Is the CIO a CBT?
Colony put Europe at least a year behind the USA, in terms of the maturity of
enterprise IT and of the CIO; and Asia, at least another year behind Europe. In
Japan, the CIO is still not up there with the business guys. For example, he
said, at Fedex in the USA, the CIO's office is right next to the CEO's: the
CIO is the most important exec for the CEO of Fedex.
Asia's picture is India's too. Most CIOs are “not up there with the
business guys”. There are exceptions, and as you'd expect, these are the
businesses that have used IT as a strategic platform, core to their business.
Many banks are up there: their service delivery depends on IT. Some of the
airlines use IT as a strategic tool. So do a few healthcare groups. Most of the
technology and BPO services companies are completely reliant on IT. Ditto for
the telecom companies. And a few manufacturing and other companies, some
government departments...
But that leaves at least two-thirds of India, Inc, for whom “IT doesn't
matter” yet. They're using IT, but it's bits of plumbing; isolated tools
that don't talk to each other. They have crores worth of hardware, but not
planned, integrated applications. And they do not have one view of the customer.
And there are still organizations, stuck in the 20th century, where the
so-called CIO reports to the CFO. All of IT is evaluated on investment and
short-term returns. The CEO is not interested in IT, and treats it as plumbing,
or worse, drainage-a kitchen sink for funds. Needless to say, IT is far from
strategic in such organizations.
The idea is compelling: Business technology. Chief business technologist.
Whether or not Colony's BT and CBT terms come into common parlance, they make
a good vision statement for the CIO-and, more importantly, for the CEO-of a
progressive organization.