2 minute read
By Errol LeBoydre
Understanding The Capabilities Of Organisational Information Systems
The pace at which technological capabilities are growing continues to accelerate rapidly. The expanding capabilities can deliver spectacular results in capturing, managing and using our information, so long as we clearly understand our requirements. How clear are your strategic information objectives and how detailed is your roadmap to achieve the outcomes you seek?
Ican clearly remember managing large scale software projects back in the 90s and in particular, I remember how difficult they were to deliver and how much pain was involved. It wasn’t uncommon to hear the phrase ‘over time and over budget’.
Why was it so difficult? The technology available at the time was not as sophisticated, the infrastructure challenges were not as easy to overcome nor solutions as flexible without ‘the cloud’, network data speed (well, no need to go there), cost of data storage was high and platform capabilities looked nothing like they do today.
The IT landscape today looks nothing like the 90s and the good news is that technology is more efficient, cheaper, considerably more intelligent, easier to implement and more flexible with configuration and delivery options.
Most vendor platforms provide integration capabilities allowing us to pick and choose the features we require and design architecture which is specific to our needs.
Highly intelligent, consumable software services that provide capabilities now, were unheard of 5 years ago. These allow us to solve most information system challenges, and more importantly, create opportunities limited only by the imagination.
This is great news, and we should all be in full control of our information with the confidence that we are efficient, secure, ready for any privacy challenge, compliant with our relevant regulations and ready to make smart strategic decisions using the value derived from our information.
But that’s not the case. Why?
There are 2 primary reasons why we are not improving our organisational information systems as fast as the technology is being delivered. You can’t take advantage of the coolest, shiniest technology we have ever seen without being clear what the optimum information ecosystem looks like. This is based on your Organisation and what challenges YOU need to overcome.
The second factor is that the rapid pace of innovation change is more difficult to consistently follow and understand with a view to practical application. In a lot of cases the changes are too fast to realistically understand and implement and the gap between innovative capabilities and actual system implementations is large.
When we can narrow that gap to be able to effectively leverage innovative technologies quicker, we will be closer to a technology cycle allowing continuous improvement.
This will require a shift in what value our partner relationships add to effectively take advantage of the exponential growth in technologies. It's time to stop thinking about band aid fixes and start to dream about how we can disrupt our industry.
What is our massive transformative purpose?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Errol LeBoydre has been a System Architect for more than 30 years with a passion to solving simple to complex Information Management challenges. Highly regarded as an integration specialist having delivered many solutions with a focus on process and operational efficiency improvements using cutting edge technologies.
