Technology Convergence Driving New Business Models

Is the IT management industry at a tipping point? - the kind of change that is so pervasive and complex that it’s especially hard to see or define. Gail La Grouw, Technology & Marketing Strategy Consultant for Coded Vision believes so. And IP Convergence website, ElectrosmartNET supports her view.

According to Gail, IT Managers have been batting their heads against brick walls. Walls built around their IT silos by corporate executives who still tend to see IT as a necessary evil. "Because they don't understand it; they don't want to know about it".

But technology has moved far beyond the desktop, and with the knowledge wave well upon us, Corporates that fail to capture their own Corporate Intelligence and put in systems and technology to utilise it, will become lost in the new IQ Economy.

More and more, processes are being streamlined to remove administrative bottlenecks and allowing intelligence technology to take over transactional activity.

HR strategies are looking at ways to support more innovation and collaboration amongst corporate workers.

Has the 'Glass Ceiling' been replaced by a 'Technology Wall'; with older generation top managers refusing to let younger, more tech savvy managers up the ladder for fear of exposing their lack of understanding of how technology will drive their organisations in the future?

Gail has worked mainly in mobile telecommunications for the past 12 years and has played leading strategic roles in the introduction of 3G data services and applications. "By having an indepth understanding of three critical areas: the technology, the market, and the legal ramifications" I have developed a broad perspective of how new technologies impact the market, and how the various new partnerships and service integrations are throwing old style legal agreements and compliance bodies into a whirl".

Sabane Oxley has motivated many companies into updating their transaction technologies to provide more transparency. Those who have been really smart, have used this opportunity to cascade their strategy down through their organisations, using methodologies such as Balanced Scorecard.

It's generally time for a good clean out - that means getting rid of old technology, old thinking and those who will not embrace the idea that new converged technologies are essential to business survival moving forward. Those that leave their run late will do so at their own peril.

Customers are getting more demanding of information and support - and if the systems do not provide what they want, they quickly move on to find a company that can support their needs. In many cases, the customer is more tech savvy than the company, so new support benchmarks need to be set at the customer perceived level.

Fortunately, there is a growing interest in process and IT organizational assessment. But many organizations struggle to find the best path forward. Implementing new technology can be very destructive on 'business as usual' if not planned in sufficient detail, and with sufficient knowledge of how the business works. The business analysis phase is the MOST critical; yet sadly, it is the phase often delegated to junior analysts. A good process consultant will drive more value into the upgrade than a project manager or program director.

Those will process re-engineering and network systems and applications knowledge are going to be in hot demand in the next ten years. Personal skill sets and exeperience will become valuable assets, and in recognition of this, experienced consultants such as Gail are setting up IQ Exchanges where those with such assets can exchange their value.

IT Silos must be broken down, and technology embraced, as an integral part of every part of the organisation. The geeks rule today. Just as lack of embracing technology is creating generation gaps in society; so too have generation gaps appeared in business.

Many organizations are attempting to remedy this by mergers and acquisitions to re-architect their organizations on new Convergence designs.

The new design will support:

Better data integration
More collaborative management environments
Shared network, systems, and applications
Virtualization of desktops
Converged access common “trusted” data sources
Extensible reporting and analytic capability

IT Infrastructure Convergence

Collaboration starts in IT. The tools are available to support this:

CMDB's [configuration management databases] are a foundational capability, driving integration of management investments, and acting as catalysts for political and cultural changes across IT and business.
Virtualization pools destop resources into a single shared pool - getting rid of processing silos at the desktop
Web 3.0 collaboration tools are finally making it easier for workers to share their knowledge
Service-oriented architectures (SOA) and multi-dimensional relationships between IT and business are needed to drive further collaboration.

New Converged Business Models

Web based sharing of systems between service and marketing partners backed by higher levels of reliability, QoS and security are merging multiple businesses into single converged service delivery models.

IT is effectively creating new converged business models. Models where IT architecture, culture, process and politics are becoming visible interdependencies.

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Author: Gail La Grouw - Gail is a corporate performance consultant for Coded-Vision Consulting. She specializes in using business intelligence to drive performance in your business by linking strategy directly to measurable actions.

COPYRIGHT: This article may be republished on the condition that the full text, including the author byline above is included.

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