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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