The days of IT holding a monopoly on technology are long gone. Instead, people with technological questions will ask anyone, even their middle-schooler. In an article for The Enterprisers Project, Sven Gerjets discusses how this can become a problem for IT departments that refuse to adapt their ways of delivering value.
Learn the Difference
Take for example the technology that allows a person to take a picture of a business card, and then it creates a contact with the person’s LinkedIn profile picture. This type of advancement has created the user expectation that technology is cheap, user-friendly, and seamless. This experience is what is disrupting the IT industry. IT organizations need to compete with this fast-paced deliverability because users now have the highest of expectations.
Unfortunately, Gerjets notes, “High-quality, fast time-to-value, low-cost and frictionless user experiences are becoming table stakes for IT but unfortunately legacy technology makes these virtually impossible.” IT organizations must begin to rethink the way in which they operate and deliver to user expectations, or they will lose their customers to something that will meet the user’s demands.
Gerjets believes that IT is now competing in a segmented marketplace. In today’s world, technology is so easily accessible, so in order to differentiate themselves, IT organizations need to refocus on delivering value. They need to learn how to adapt. If IT organizations are resistant to this change, they will ultimately meet their demise.
The time to strike is now! IT organizations can create an environment that is conducive of learning–learning from failures, learning how to adapt, experimenting with new approaches, and retaining and sharing their newfound information. The rate at which organizations can learn is what will be IT’s competitive advantage. Once leaders accept they too have a lot to learn, they will create a waterfall effect to inspire everyone in the organization to embrace the new learning challenge.
You can read the original article here: https://enterprisersproject.com/article/2016/4/rethinking-how-it-drives-business-value-digital-age
