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Business Transformation What ICT is all about
The impact of a whole series of cultural, economic and social changes have combined over recent years to put pressure on organisations to demand that their ICT suppliers start delivering more than just technology and basic business and office productivity applications. What these organisations are really looking for are IT solutions that will help them transform their operations, processes and business models and make them more competitive, agile and profitable. These ‘Business Transformation’ solutions are not a new breed of software applications, rather they are often the combination of existing technologies and applications delivered in a more dynamic, cost effective and flexible manner. The background to this transformation revolution is fundamentally about cultural and social changes where individuals, who have grown up with new technology, are both forcing a change to the way we use that technology in our social and business worlds and demanding a change to working patterns and processes to enable a better work and social life balance. This cultural and social change, when combined with the economic pressures of the last few years, has led organisations to completely rethink their attitude to IT and what they want from it. What is also important to understand is that this recent recession, more than any other in the past, has hardened the way organisations assess their suppliers and partners, has created leaner and more efficient businesses and most importantly has taught organisations of all sizes that they have to be agile and adaptable. The most positive outcome of all this for the ICT industry is that every organisation now knows that it will have to rely on technology if it is to survive and prosper in this post recession world.
However in acknowledging this fact, what is becoming very clear, is that organisations are not going to suddenly ramp up their purchasing of technology. What they have learnt the hard way is that locking yourself into a particular technology model can seriously restrict your ability to respond to market changes and can be expensive to change and modify. So combined with this reliance on technology is a determination not to be tied into a specific vendor or technology model. This is counter to the thinking of many IT departments in the past who have stuck with a particular vendor or IT model to enable them to more quickly deploy applications to their users in a controlled way. However the nature of this new IT world demands flexibility, mobility and agility. The old world of IT was about control and management. All these cultural, economic, social, business and technology changes are combining at this moment to create what many people are calling a ‘Perfect Storm’ or a ‘Paradigm Shift’. I prefer to look at it as the ‘Perfect Confluence’, in that it is a whole series of influences coming together to create a new era of computing that has magnificent momentum and will change what we all perceive IT can deliver.
IT Europa Ltd, Armstrong House, 38 Market Square, Uxbridge, Middlesex, UK UB8 1LH Phone: +44 (0) 1895 454 458 www.iteuropa.com
I believe the period we are entering can quite properly be termed an ‘ICT Renaissance’. This term ‘renaissance’ according to most dictionaries refers to a reawakening or renewal and that is exactly how it needs to be thought of by ICT companies and customers. It is a reaffirmation of what ICT has always promised and so often failed to deliver, the ability to enable organisations to transform themselves. What this ICT Renaissance is about is finding a new way forward that does not look at ICT as a set of technologies and software applications but rather a holistic way of communicating, socialising and transacting between individuals, groups and organisations. At the heart of this renaissance is looking at the way we socialise, communicate and transact from a process standpoint. Not to regiment the way these processes occur but to encompass, at a process level, all the ways these individuals, groups and organisations may want to engage. This is a fundamental shift from the rigid process driven ICT solutions of the past and it requires a different mindset of systems designer, project manager, programmer and sales person. It obliges a more consultative approach from the ICT supplier, listening to the real desires of the client not just their immediate needs. It needs a more open discussion with the client about what is possible, how the alternative solutions can deliver a return on their investment and how they can retain their agility and competitiveness.
We are not short of technology to throw at any issue the client may have but to address the dual issues of reliance on ICT but no tie in to ICT the solution provider will have pull together best of breed technologies and software applications and deliver them in a completely new way. At the heart of most new ICT solutions will be a combination of ‘Cloud Computing’ architecture, 21st century communications infrastructure, collaborative communications technologies and SaaS delivered applications. These solutions will have to integrate and interface with legacy applications and systems, enabling new and more dynamic ways of operating whilst laying a platform for Business Transformation.
IT Europa Ltd, Armstrong House, 38 Market Square, Uxbridge, Middlesex, UK UB8 1LH Phone: +44 (0) 1895 454 458 www.iteuropa.com