Technology is not a Toy!
Ever known an architect or CTO that wanted every new piece of technology, every toy? The problem is that the toy box is paid for by the company. So, how do you separate the toys from the tools? Alignment!
Aligning technology to the business it supports can be a difficult, and is usually an emotionally charged activity. At many clients we find several disconnected point solutions on disparate platforms (can you say legacy), from all sorts of different providers. We see this at every size company in every industry; no one is immune.
Before you know it, you have complex, disconnected technologies, all requiring specific skill sets to keep them running, while the cost of running your IT operation gets more attention than you’d like from the folks carrying calculators. And as you continue down this path, it becomes increasingly difficult (and risky from a salary continuation perspective) to escape. Sound familiar?
So how do you get out of the quagmire? It starts with taking the proverbial step back to see the forest instead of the trees. Look at your business as a whole—really look at it, not just what products and technologies you have, but understand your Business Value Chain (BVC) and IT Supply Chain (ITSC). The BVC decomposes business functions (sales, operations, administration, engineering, etc.) by business activities (customer service, scheduling, finance, development, etc.) to quantify the value of IT for your individual business or industry. The ITSC then matches your business applications to the BVC (i.e. CRMóCustomer Service). The characteristics that make your business viable/unique/important/profitable should be the driving force behind your technology decisions, not the other way around.
Example: Joe from marketing is pushing to change to the new wiz-bang web technology he saw at a show and doesn’t usually take no for an answer. The big questions you need to ask: do we have a problem statement or particular pain-point this solves, does this match our strategic technology direction and need, is there even a business case to justify evaluation?
If you haven’t yet begun to change the way you make these decisions, the time is now. It doesn’t matter if you manage your own data center, use public clouds, outsource data center and operations, or any combination, we all face these challenges. Once you’ve determined what really makes your company distinctive and the systems that are critical to its success, you’ve turned the toy box into a tool box of solutions – that’s when you can start running your IT shop differently. Below are some topics that can help jumpstart the conversation.
Diversity in technology platforms costs real dollars—the green kind.
- Know where and how to apply the latest and greatest technology to bolster your bottom line and, maybe more importantly, find out where it won’t. Go back to your BVC and be sure you know what you’re in the business of doing.
Reference Architectures are your allies.
- Be prescriptive and disciplined with your reference architectures regarding approved, emerging, declining, and prohibited technologies; how and where to leverage each of them, and the processes for managing exceptions. A well-documented exception process should drive evaluation of emerging technologies for a more focused R&D approach.
There aren’t any silver bullets, just find effective ones.
- Aligning the ITSC to the BVC will help you identify the ammunition that can get the job done by giving you the scalability, performance, flexibility, and agility everyone wants and needs.
It’s very easy to become enamored with the latest technology innovation, whether a tablet or an ultra-fast server/storage device or the cloud. Understanding business demand and your ITSC can ground the initial decision process to save both time and money.
Category: Business Alignment
About the Author
Peter is the Chief Infrastructure Architect at Adaptivity. He has held director level roles in architecture, engineering, information security, application services, and infrastructure with Constellation Brands, GE, Microwave Data Systems, and has additional background in engineering and project management from his days with EDS. Peter has a B.S. in MIS from Canisius College in Buffalo, NY.View Author Profile
Very well said, Pete. I think that many IT leaders have lost sight of the fact that IT’s primary role is to support business processes and increase efficiencies. Given the financial state of most organizations, ROI’s and cost justifications need to be at the forefront of any IT investment. As you alluded to above, the question that always needs to asked is “How will this new piece of technology increase the organization’s profitability or reduce costs?”
Thanks Travis and you’re right on. The hidden costs of technology, those items that get mysteriously overlooked when building ROI models, should surface with BVC decomposition and proper alignment. Stay tuned for more on these topics and keep doing what you do!!
Defining the Reference Architecture is the real key – be it mobility, core connectivity, base infrastructure, or even just a server. Too much flexibility beyond the reference directly plays into scope creep, and every creep carries a cost.
Great comment Jerry! Another one of our bloggers is going to be tackling the concept of transformation leveraging reference architectures (or as we call them Blueprints) on Friday! Make sure to look for it.
Absolutely Jeremy. The first step in managing/governing the technologies you employ is to build your RA’s (aligned appropriately with business function & need) and processes for evaluation and exception. These RA’s should be approved and socialized with your business leadership giving you support for maintaining their relevance. As Jonathan suggests, we have another thread going live on Friday.
I think your point is well made and well taken. However, its easier said then done. In a multi-level, multi-business organization, the decision makers need to work together to identify what is needed for all divisions and most of the time they try to make one platform work for everyone. That does not work. Technology needs to be adaptive and we as leaders, need to know when to pay for those adaptations and when to get a cookie cutter box solution. Again, being driven by the hard earned dollar tends to make many of those decisions for us.
Exactly right Scott – thanks for commenting. Your point is a direct correlation to the BVC decomposition – employing the technologies that either differentiate your business or give you competitive advantage. With an organization as complex as yours, it’s even more important to conduct that study.
As I commented with Jeremy, Reference Architectures should be approved/agreed to by business leadership, with appropriate procedure for update, review, evaluation & exception. If the RA’s are constructed, managed, and communicated properly, the dollars and cents (or is that sometimes sense?) of the business case & ROI model align with the business need.
Adaptive technology is a fantastic point. Working toward a fit for purpose or utility style of infrastructure is much harder than the one size fits all approach, but gives you much more flexibility, faster response to compute demands, scalability, etc. It’s definitely worth going the extra mile to get there.
[...] the first part of this series “Technology is not a Toy,” we discussed technology alignment to the business and the exposure of the tail wagging the dog [...]