Saama recently welcomed a new Chief Client Officer, Manish Sharma. Manish is a co-author of a well-received book published last year, called The Tech BuzzKill: How Top IT Leaders Fend Off the Tech “Buzz” to focus on the Business.
The book includes interviews with 72 senior IT leaders on the topic of business alignment. These documented one-on-one interviews include techniques for IT to excel in business alignment.
In his research for the book, Manish’s co-author, Gerry Robinson, came across an industry analyst’s prediction that the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) would outspend the Chief Information Officer (CIO) in information technology spend by 2017. His takeaway was that the relevancy of the CIO and IT were contingent upon their ability to align with the business.
Inside Out vs. Outside In
The interviews of top IT executives in this book confirm our beliefs about the tension between business and IT today. Traditionally, IT has worked from the Inside Out, building an IT infrastructure that could then be used by the business. What we’re finding today is that the paradigm is shifting to an Outside In view, where the lines of business are bringing to IT their own demands for analytics. Right now, the business rules. The interview subjects in Manish’s book only serve to confirm this. IT decisions can’t be made in a vacuum. They must be validated and aligned with business goals.
