Because if you read the advice given by Gartner, IBM, and other experts, a lot is familiar. It’s more or less the exact same things that have been highlighted at least as long as I’ve been covering these issues, which is around 20 years now: IT and the business must go hand in hand; IT leaders must speak to the company management in the language of the business; IT leaders must find balance between uptime and innovation. None of this is new, which leads me to believe the problems aren’t new either.
As an outside observer, in a way, I become a bit dull. How can it still be a matter of “IT and the business talking to each other”? Is it still seen as a special interest or a necessary evil in companies? In a world where most of the most valuable companies are IT companies and where IT is singled out as decisive for the competitiveness of entire continents?
Well, in part I unfortunately think it is. But at the same time, I believe that this goes in cycles, depending on what tests the outside world puts companies and IT departments through. Take the pandemic, for example, when CIOs and IT were hailed as heroes for helping companies adapt so quickly. It was, of course, about a “classic” IT assignment: tools, functionality, processes, support. Something that a well-functioning IT organization has good opportunities to excel at.
