Business-Led IT& Central IT Scaffolding
UCCSC
August 4, 2014
Background and Context
• Central IT has historically held IT functions within departments with a bit of caution. Often referred to as:
• Departmental IT
• Shadow IT
• Rogue IT
• These departments evolved IT support groups over time to meet business needs that central IT was either unable or unwilling to address.
• This is expanding with the “digital business” revolution and as the integration of consumer technology into every aspect of business accelerates.
• It is critically important that Central IT provide the “scaffolding” necessary to enable departments to innovate in a safe and leverage-able way.
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The Case for Business Led IT
• Business Volatility: Things change very quickly.
• Accessible “digital” technology: especially collaboration, analytics, and engagement technologies
• Business departments must become savvy about technology and data in order to compete.
• Leveraging new technology to innovate often requires deep knowledge of the business.
• Central IT departments have unlimited demand; very limited supply, and limited intimacy with business issues.
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Departments can and will address rapidly evolving business needs by using nascent technologies and help from assertive vendors.
The Case for Central IT• Professional Level of IT Skills
• Vendor negotiation
• Operational management
• Maintenance and support
• Cost: Leveraging scale for value
• Many IT assets and services are best purchased and managed in scale
• Many aspects of IT have enterprise wide implications:
• Security
• Integration of systems and data
• Data requires centralized governance to enable data standardization and sharing
• Enterprise architecture is important to leverage data and support integrated work process…this requires a centralized view of all systems.
• Coordinating new IT implementations to prevent conflicts and duplication of resources.
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There’s a Place Somewhere in the Middle
• Business-led for:
• Stand-alone systems where speed and flexibility are of greater importance than integration and scale.
• New technologies that are rapidly developing and bring immediate competitive advantage.
• E.G.: specialized analytic tools; specialized customer engagement tools; specialized smartphone apps; etc…
• Intimate business expertise is required to dynamically change and operate the environment.
• Central IT for:
• Enterprise systems of record such as EHR, ERP, etc…
• Commodity systems where scale is important.
• Risks and capabilities that must be managed enterprise wide.
• Interconnecting / integrating / sharing data across business segments.
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Can Central IT provide the “scaffolding” to enable the business units to innovate quickly without compromising the integrity of the enterprise?
Scaffolding: Not This
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Scaffolding: More Like This
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Central IT provides Scaffolding that enables rapid innovation for the specialized needs of each business unit.
Example IT “Scaffolding” Components
• Enterprise systems of record (e.g. EHR, ERP, SIS, etc…)
• Integration Services (interfaces, APIs, web-services, etc…)
• Master Data Management (EDW; Data Governance; Analytic Support/training)
• Identity and network directory services
• Information Security Services
• Computing Devices: desktops; laptops; smartphones; tablets; etc…
• Collaboration Platforms: e.g. email, Chatter, Box, Sharepoint, etc…
• Image Management Platforms: e.g. VNA, ECM
• Network Infrastructure: data, voice, video, internet
• Computing Services: facilities, servers, storage, back-ups, etc…
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Changes to Consider• Consider business-led IT as a valid and valuable aspect of the enterprise.
• Less energy to prohibition and more energy to collaboration and enablement.
• Establish guardrails and checkpoints in which central IT must be involved / engaged.
• Trust
• Define and build the IT scaffolding with key characteristics in mind:
• Accessible / maximize self service access to central services
• Reliable / high quality
• Efficient (leverage scale)
• Central IT act as technology advisors to the business that
• Support business-led IT solutions by leveraging key central IT services and controls.
• Knows the ins and outs of the scaffolding and how to leverage it as a component to solving unique business problems.
• Develops complete solutions that include ongoing support and maintenance.
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