Management Toolkit
Story: IT is key to future business growth
foundation and corporate citizenship
I’d agree wholeheartedly that getting the foundation right is important. While its possible to have separate platforms, they should each be stable in their own right.
And having said this, this brings me onto the next issue. I believe that diverse platforms should communicate seamlessly, and should interoperate seamlessly.
I see IT in fact as having a destroying role. I want to see IT break down the barriers of existing systems. I want it to force systems into talking to each other. I want to see multiple systems replaced with single instances.
I believe the role of IT is to keep things simple, by breaking things down to the lowest common denominator.
Systems are complex, and frequently this is due to political reasons, rather than technical ones. The number of times individual businesses have implemented things because it suits them, with no regard for the overall business, has me shaking my head. It’s a short term view that focuses entirely on the bottom line, with corporate citizen behaviour being the last thing on managements mind. And it is a very thorny issue to resolve indeed.
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