It’s taken many years for the business environment to reach the point where there was a good, general understanding of IT services such as programming, networking, databases, communications, implementations. As technology has become more pervasive in society and business has become more knowledgeable about those technologies, it has become easier for IT service companies to explain their specific services to clients. Just as we think we’ve finally grasped ‘information technology’, however, new challenges are emerging in defining and explaining ‘business technology’.

With BT we shift the focus away from the technology at the centre, to business at the centre. Some would argue this has always been the case, but in reality, for many years, the singular ‘coolness’ of rapidly evolving technologies has been driving its own evolution, with business value and benefits more of an afterthought. BT re-sets the use of technology as a core enabler of business to create a new phrase: ‘technology-enabled business’. As we move into this new era of BT, however, we also move into new areas of skills and analytical expertise such as business process, investment value, organizational models and performance assessments. Now IT (or BT) service companies need to learn how to present these services in new terms, not as separate from IT but as a natural extension and evolution to BT. Business/IT Alignment provides a framework for integrating technologies into a business-focused agenda.

If you’re struggling with the role of technology in your organization, and trying to reconcile this with the increasing demand for planning, organizational changes, analysis and assessment, then contact me to arrange a BITA assessment, and move your organization into the new BT movement!

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