21st Century IT needs to run on 3 interconnected tracks...

During a cab-ride in London earlier this week, I had an interesting conversation with the driver, a former drive test examiner. Navigating the chaotic traffic in rush hour, he said, you know the problem is not speeding or cutting lanes. It is that people can no longer control the gear they use based on the road conditions. It’s fundamental to good driving, he said. I couldn’t help but remind him that this was true for all walks of life these days; even so for the Industry I come from!

It’s true. The concept of different gears for different speeds and different needs, is exactly how the IT Industry is also transforming today.

In the 20th century organization, there used to be just a single face of IT, structured to provide systems of support to multiple functions in the organization. The business model revolved around functions, each of which decided the needs of their value chains, and the role of IT was to build independent systems to support each of them – HR, Finance, Marketing, etc. – and then integrate them on a common system, creating a pretty tangled web. All the systems ran on one speed, determined by the specifications of the IT infrastructure in the company; pivot-ability within this structure was pretty inhibited.

Cut to the 21st century, where technology is core to the company. What was once called ‘Shadow IT’ – implying systems outside the world of the CIO – have now been legitimized and in fact, proactively on-boarded, with each function working on cloud-based systems largely untethered to any IT infrastructural assets within the organization.

Within this scenario, each function is moving at different speeds based on their needs. Finance moves slowly with its cumbersome compliance requirements. Manufacturing is moving a little faster as it converts its assets to "smart assets". Marketing on the other hand is moving the fastest with its digital channels responding to rapidly changing customer preferences. Each of these functions selects the gear required for their speed at different phases of their journey.

Now, rather than being the custodian, IT is the facilitator, or the clutch in the car, that synchronizes the transition between multiple gear movements, for a smooth drive. And with all the complicated mechanics extracted at the backend, the users just drive away with the confidence that the systems will complement each other, moving in a well-coordinated manner, to collectively get them to the intended destination.

I call this multi-modal IT i.e. IT running on different tracks and speeds for different business needs. Let me explain further.

A multi-lane highway

As I see it, technology in the 21st century enterprise runs on three interconnected tracks – Enterprise Technology, Operations Technology and Business Technology – all tied together into one unified experience through Multi-modal IT. Let’s take a quick look at the development and composition of each of these tracks.

Enterprise Technology emerged as an aide-de-camp to supporting CFO/COO primarily, through electronic data processing (EDP) and Management Information Systems (MIS). Its focus has always been on building systems of records and structured processes with an eye on stability and compliance.

Operations Technology has always been found in the manufacturing plants, focused on enhancing the efficiency of asset value chains. For decades, however, the power of Operations Technology has been locked within the shackles of proprietary systems, controlled by a handful of firms worldwide.

Business Technology is the new kid on the block, focused on the user or consumer of technology, the most important node in a business lifecycle. It emerged when realization dawned that, while one part of IT was focused on supporting system efficiency, and the other on enhancing assets efficiency, the user at the center of this universe had been completely left out. Business Technology is all about revenue generating systems linking directly to the user, who could be consuming digital services as a persona-based omni-channel user, or a smart asset user in a connected ecosystem. Business Technology is also where the convergence of IT and Operations Technologies is creating the new CIOT/IIOT ecosystems.

Moving tracks

Now, each of these three tracks are undergoing change in the 21st century enterprise. Enterprise IT is changing from the old ‘plan-build-run’ project management model to a cloud-based ‘consume-configure-build’ product management, Operations Technology is experiencing an "Internet-ification" to transform dumb assets into smart connected assets, a phenomenon popularly known as Internet of Things. And Business Technology is completely transforming the customer experience through personalization, and continuous improvements, through rapid iterations of new functionalities on a minimum viable product concept, while keeping the complexities abstracted at the backend.

So where does Multi-modal come in, you might ask.

This is where the picture gets captivating. The changes in each of these tracks are occurring at different speeds, based on the need at different phases of their journey. Enterprise Technology, for instance, has to make complicated maneuvers to change large systems of records at the back-end and is therefore moving slower than the rest. Operations Technology is picking up pace in the middle office as its world opens up on the internet through machine-to-machine communication. And Business Technology is tearing ahead at the front end trying to keep pace with the rapidly changing preferences of the consumer. The movement is not completely watertight either as the tracks are interconnected, influencing each other’s pace of change. For instance, when a customer wants to know the status of his order real time on the Internet, or when the operations team seek information on the order pipeline, they propel the back-end systems to move faster.

And bringing all the three tracks together is the fourth layer of autonomics and orchestration – the glue that connects them all and keeps them moving forward together in one synchronized movement.

This is the power of Multi-modal IT, building a future on a multi-lane highway. Every piece on these tracks have very different asks, and I am happy to see the IT Industry transitioning from a linear market approach to offering distinctive value propositions aimed at each of the tracks.

As organizations race ahead on this highway, the role of the technology team has been reinvented as an enabling partner who is leveraging the combined power of technology for course-plotting, navigating, guiding, managing and synchronizing the traffic on all lanes.

Note: An abridged version of this article first appeared in Economic Times.