Bridging the Gap Between IT and Business

As technology advances we are equipped with new tools that make our lives much easier to manage. Everything from the simple things such as calendars and alarms, to home automation has become things we couldn’t imagine living without. The same rings true in the business world. The tools available to the modern organization today are vast and abundant. In fact, many organizations rely on information technology (IT) in most (if not all) of their daily functions. So you may ask yourself, “What is creating this chasm between the business world and the IT world?”

Knowledge:

Many organizations struggle to intellectually keep up with the latest and greatest in the technology realm with the ever increasing growth of IT. Businesses generally struggle with dedicating a significant amount of their financial bottom line to implement something that they don’t fully understand. This is where dialog and education becomes crucial. It is critical that the IT world and the business world communicate. If the business can communicate their requirements effectively, and the IT department/vendor can communicate their solution effectively, both sides would be more educated about the problem/solution as a whole.

Competition:

The modern industry is an increasingly competitive market. This puts even more emphasis on the organization’s reluctance to dedicate any significant amount of financial backing to something they aren’t certain will increase their revenue or efficiency. With the introduction of data mining, IT has given the modern industry a marketing tool that is unsurpassed in effectiveness. Marketing can now analyze customer (and potential customer) data based on their online activities and demographics. The more organizations that use this; the more the other organizations are going to need it to compete.

Trust:

The business world and the IT world must be able to establish trust and confidence between the two. Much of this is reliant on communication (like any relationship). An organization needs to know that their processes and applications will not be negatively affected, and that there data and services will be available when it is needed. The IT world must be able to communicate service availability, disaster management, and data integrity/security, and service level agreements effectively to gain the business world’s trust. The key to gaining a business’ trust is taking a proactive or preventative approach to ensure that the business’ critical processes and services will be available.

Conclusion:

Bridging the gap between IT and business has been an ongoing issue. It is important that dialog is exchanged across the chasm so that both sides are knowledgeable of the importance of IT in the modern industry. Instilling knowledge creates confidence, and this is only done through communication. As analytics grow through the use of data mining, it is important for the IT educate the business on the impact that efficient IT can have on the organization’s bottom line. Explaining key business indicators such as service availability, loss of revenue, cost of disruption of service, and transaction success rates, will help the business determine if the value of service is worth the price of implementation.