Technology is a Good Walking Stick

At a recent round-table chat with 20 CIOs of companies based in India and in the US seem to point to a pattern:

1. The business is getting overly critical of the pace and the quality of deliverables from the IS folks.
2. We have businesses taking law into their hands by choosing to talk to technology product and service companies directly, completely by-passing the CIO’s office.
3. The CIO’s team seems to be getting relegated to switching on the IS Infrastructure, keeping the lights on, and shutting them down when done.
4. In terms of job content, there is too much of administration, and too little of strategic work.
5. Our budgets are always questioned, and the IS department is being made to fight for every dollar.
6. We face huge difficulties in finding good talent to work in a corporate IS department, as we compete with IT service companies and start-ups for these resources.
7. The IT Services companies’ activities that muddy the waters further, by offering outsourcing contracts to the CEO/CFO.
8. Fewer CIOs than ever before are reporting to the CEO, and the two decades ago practice of IS reporting to the CFO seems to be back with a vengeance.

To be fair, the business, if asked, may have the following to say:

1. We need the CIO and his/her office to take the “Business First, Technology Next” approach in all their discussions, proposals and presentations with us.
2. The IS department simply does not understand business issues, priorities and problems. We do not have the bandwidth, time or inclination to educate them.
3. The CIO/CTO teams start talking technology at the drop of a coin, and leave us frustrated as we do not see the connection between what they are saying and what we are doing.
4. A new technology, or even a popular one, is no reason to initiate a project that interferes with the status-quo, especially when we are fighting new fires every single day.
5. We always come to know smarter ways of using technology from our competitors. And then the “catch-up” game begins. When is the last time we have been the first to embark on a business initiative that was inspired by technology?
6. IT services and products vendors are consciously investing in gaining domain knowledge. Whenever we chat with their people, we always come away with new insights on happenings in our industry from all over the world. Why can’t our IS folks do this for us?

The relationship between business and technology has always been recursive, with each one taking turns to push the other ahead. With an explosion in the coming of new technologies, it is a fact that most CIO/CTO departments have taken their eyes off the business, and stand transfixed at happenings in the technology world. It is quite possible that business problems in corporations today do not necessarily need the latest in technologies. Finding that fit, and making a business case remain the paramount tasks for a good IS department.

Charles Lamb, the famous British essayist has this to say about the role of Technology in Business: “Technology is a good walking stick, but a bad crutch.” For the CIO/CTO, this will mean that they must see and understand the business areas that need strength (walking stick) rather than look at areas that business is not currently engaged in at all (a crutch to replace a leg that is missing).

It must be emphasized that technology departments/investments are, and will/should remain subservient to the business. The onus of seeking alignment for technology investment proposals with Corporate, Business and Market strategies of the company is entirely on the CIO and the CTO. Like all good service providers, they must shadow the ‘customer’.

Henry Ford’s words, although from a different context, points to a direction that our CIOs and CTOs need to take, whenever they talk to business:

“If you need a new machine and don’t buy it, you pay for it without getting it.”