Most of the time we hear of Business Savvy CIOs and there is much written about how and what a CIO should do to understand the business needs and how much the CIO align IT to business needs. There is much discussion on how a CIO should run "IT as a business".
But have we ever heard of there is need to a "IT Savvy Business Leader"? Perhaps not, because a IT Savvy Business Leader is a rare commodity. Of course, Business Leaders / CEOs are primarily responsible for business strategy and business growth... why should they bother about IT? What do they gain from being IT Savvy?
Well... firstly let us attempt to define what is a "IT Savvy Business Leader"? There is no definition in technical terms but in a very broad sense it means - a business leader who communicates the organization vision which affords and defines a central role to leveraging IT for value creation; business leaders who engage themselves in strategic IT decisions and who insist that their top management does as well. IT Savvy Business Leaders construct an equal partnership between business and IT and through such a partnership achieve superior results for themselves, their team and the organization.
It is important to realize that most of the time the blame for deficiencies for leveraging IT investments is on the CIO, but I believe that the business people should be equally blamed for their failure in their role to own and to extract value from IT investments and leverage technology. I have seen business people discounting and disowning IT systems and procedures even before the blueprint is put down on paper and before it is approved by the senior management / board; I have seen business people forming their perspectives around technology beforehand itself. I believe that such a lack of IT Savvy Business people leads to underperforming IT assets.
In fact, there needs to be a realization and acceptance to the fact that in the last three decades, IT have moved from being the back-office function to a front-office function, from the bottom level of the firm (remember, the good old "EDP" days) to the board of directors and from physically massive objects to small-form devices with enormous power that can be carried around in a pocket and can extend and connect you to anyone, anyplace, anytime and anywhere in a matter of split second. Today's integrated and global platforms have the ability and capability to run complex processes and are in contrast to the stand-alone systems with limited functionality.
Because of the above, business leaders get drawn into decisions that were purely considered technical in nature. Irrespective of their understanding on technology, today, business leaders have to think and expand their business horizons to include decision-making on IT investments. With the advent of evolution in technology and its new forms and opportunities - Cloud Computing, Mobility, Social media and Big Data, the "Business-IT relationship" has been undergoing a change and business leaders have to take the same into account and factor it in their decision making processes. There is a need for business leaders develop their organization architecture to guide IT decision making, a need to directly relate business performance to leveraging IT effectively i.e. to becoming a IT Savvy Business person.
IT Saavy means the mind-set and capability to see the world through "digital" lens; it is all about a behaviour, a thought-process. IT Savvy Business Leader directly engages in IT decision making, assume responsibility for extracting value from IT investments, encouraging others to use and understand technologies that underpin their business responsibilities, engage in cross-enterprise IT innovation. It is NOT about building IT but about bringing IT closer into the activities of the business on an everyday basis through personal involvement and not delegation. IT Savvy is definitely is NOT about "use of IT" and technology devices.
Here is a kind of yardstick (of course, one can add to this list) against which one can measure if one is a IT Savvy Business Leader or otherwise -
- Do you establish business targets with IT capability in your company strategic plans?
- Does Management Job Performance and Evaluation in your company / department include accountability for performance of IT Investments
- Have you put in place Rewards and Incentives that promote information and systems sharing?
- Do you share data, information and knowledge with your peers and colleagues? Do you promote the sharing of the same?
- Do you encourage innovative use of IT in your department / company?
- Do you help create and ensure that the information systems and information resources are accurate, reliable, relevant, accessible and shareable?
