IT is too important to leave to IT specialists

Published 19 September 2007

How and why the IT function needs to change its relationship with the business

War may be too important to leave to the generals, and IT infrastructure and security may be too important to leave to IT specialists. The rising importance of IT in every aspect of business has engendered a matching rise in the cost and complexity of the IT infrastructure. This has both made IT an easy target for cost cutting exercises and put pressure on times-to-market for new services delivered to the business. ComputerWeekly opines that the business function expects IT to tighten its belt and to streamline IT service provision, for improved responsiveness to changing business requirements. Simultaneously, the expectation is for higher resilience, control, availability, and quality of service. The challenge for the IT organisation is thus to balance these potentially conflicting demands: high speed-to-market and flexibility versus auditable control and low costs.

Now that IT plays such an important role in the overall success or failure of any organization, the business rightly expects the IT department to broaden its focus and to take a more mature and holistic attitude to IT service provision. You may want to read this white paper to see why the IT function needs to step out of the shadows and start taking responsibility for understanding and meeting the business requirements.