What will you learn in this book?
Is Alignment a dead-end street?
For more than 15 years, we’ve studied the concept of Alignment between business and IT. Alignment talks about the relationship, positioning and role-patterns between the IT department and the various business functions. Models have been produced, papers have been written, and patterns have been identified. We now know more than ever before about the mechanics of Alignment, and still the relationship between business and IT in most companies has never been worse. So, is Alignment a dead-end street?
Fusion goes beyond Alignment
We believe the new concept is Fusion. And really, we don’t mean that Fusion is just the ‘new word’ for Alignment. Although the underlying principle remains the same, Fusion holds a much stronger and powerful meaning - where Alignment calls for a two-party system to collaborate, Fusion is about a strong convergence between the two. Even the two melting together.
Fusion means blending IT into the business, and no longer treating IT as a supplier but completely integrating IT into the business. This has great potential, because instead of wasting a lot of energy in fighting between business and IT, you use this energy in allowing IT professionals to work with the business to deliver results in a more efficient and effective way.
Fusion results in a melting pot of business and IT thus paving the way for more innovative and integrated business models. Fusion will put IT into the business, and fully into the strategic and operational reality of a business, instead of seeing IT as a ‘staff function’.
Technology-enabled innovation
It is time for a major transformation of IT. It is time for a quantum leap. For years, the way we have run IT, as a CIO, was to command an army of ordertaking specialist workers, an underground army hidden away in the basement of our companies.These reactive armies of craftsmen are a thing of the past.
Fusion will allow companies to focus on technology-enabled innovation, instead of just on the commodity-saving potential of technology. Fusion will allow a new type of organization to be created, out of the ashes of the old IT department that will evolve from an ‘executional technology function’ towards a ‘proactive strategic innovation function’. Fusion will allow companies to focus on maximizing value from technology innovation. This ‘new’ way of thinking about IT, is what we refer to as IT 2.0.
Which questions will be answered?
- What is business/IT Fusion and what is the difference with business/IT Alignment?
- How will the new Fusion of business and IT function, particularly in its relationship with the business customers and with its suppliers?
- What will the new IT organization look like from a Fusion perspective?
- What are the tools and mechanisms to make Fusion work?
- How can we implement ‘intelligent governance’ and move from budget thinking to portfolio thinking?
- How can I use the concept of architecture and turn this into a business instrument?
- How will we staff these new IT organizations?
- What type of skills do we need, and how will we attract them?
- How can I rebuild the image of IT, and market technology innovation to the business?
- What will the new breed of CIO look like, who can transform IT into a Fusion concept?
- How to build a ‘new deal’ between Business and IT, and how to maintain it?