How is IT strategic?

Dear Bob …

I am working for an IT department in a medium-sized company and have a very basic query. I would appreciate any pointers, earlier columns or any book to help clear my confusion.

The question: If IT only exists to support Business Functions, how is IT strategic? What I mean to say is if Business Functions decide what needs to be done and IT needs to follow or at best recommend different options, what is strategic about that?

– Wondering

Dear Wondering …

I’d call your question more than merely basic. It’s fundamental.

Far too many IT organizations of all sizes see their role as passive order-takers. You’re quite correct in wondering how someone who receives work-orders and processes them is in any way strategic. The answer is that they aren’t. CIOs who run this variety of IT department are playing it safe.

Strategic IT organizations are on a constant lookout for IT-driven threats to the business and opportunities for it. Their CIOs encourage managers and staff at all levels to form productive, collaborative relationships with managers and staff elsewhere in the business, to find out what’s going on out there – what they’d like to achieve, how they’d like their parts of the business to operate, what competitors are doing and so on.

Most important of all, they stop asking, “What would you like the software to do?” and start asking, “How do you envision your operation running better over the next few years?”

I’ve written a lot about this over the past … eleven! … years. If you’re looking for just one, perhaps the single most useful was the “KJR Manifesto – Core Principles,” (Keep the Joint Running, 4/10/2006).

– Bob