Many CIOs grapple with how to align IT with the needs of their businesses. By de facto, they have to demonstrate the value their role serves and to make sure technology works well within their businesses. However, these CIOs aren't alone. Businesses, in general, have a hard time measuring and quantifying the value of IT and how it affects the entire business.

Meanwhile, forces such as a mobile global workforce, the growing dependency on social media, and the push for more utility computing based on service-oriented architecture are driving businesses to converge their IT strategy with their business strategy. This move will fuel growth and will sustain profitability. In a converged company, information, not the technology behind it, is what matters to all constituents the company serves. As a result, CIOs take on the new role of information officer not chief IT officer. They become more involve in strategy planning and in the governance process. Moreover, they look at how technology enables the business architecture and how the business manages the overall investment portfolio.

No one knows more about getting out of the alignment trap and moving toward convergence than Faisal Hoque, founder and CEO of BTM Corporation; founder of the BTM Institute, a not-for-profit IT think tank; and author of five books on business technology management. In fact, a decade ago, Hoque conceived and developed a unique holistic business model which looks at the relationship between business and technology in the following areas: governance, strategy and platform, enterprise architecture, investment management, and the maturity of the overall management structure. The result is a converged organization where business and technology come together to drive innovation, which, in turn, fuels growth and profitability.

In this podcast, Hoque provides a good overview of the organizational changes and the philosophy changes CIOs need to consider if they want to transition from alignment to convergence. He also talks about the BTM Institute's Business Technology Convergence Index, a five-year study that quantifies the relationship between the way global companies value their technology investments and the companies' revenues and profitability.  He says, "Companies with mature converged business technology management practices, such as FedEx, UPS, and Procter & Gamble, have better financial performance than their competitors. Think about it. Today, both FedEx and UPS are information services companies, not just movers or packages and trucks."

Bio
In 1999, Faisal Hoque founded Business Technology Management (BTM) Corporation, to innovate new business and technology models to help global organizations improve their operational efficiency. He also founded the BTM Institute, a not-for-profit technology think tank comprised of academic researchers, global business leaders, and government officials.

A former senior executive at General Electric and other multi-nationals, Hoque is an internationally known, visionary entrepreneur and award- winning thought leader. Professor Mohammed Yunus, a 2006 Nobel Peace Prize Laurete, has recognized the value of Faisal Hoque's work in bringing sustainable technology and business innovation to third-world countries. Recently, Ziff Davis Enterprises named Hoque one of the 100 Most Influential People in Technology today.

He is the author of five books including The Alignment Effect: How to Get Business Value Out of Technology, Winning the 3-Legged Race, and Sustained Innovation: Converging Business and Technology to Achieve Enduring Performance.  He has written numerous articles and papers for such publications as BusinessWeek, The Economist, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, and CIO Magazine, and is a frequent public speaker.

Resources
MassHighTech  -- Ziff Davis Partners with BTM
CIO   - Study Provides Evidence That Technology Execution Leads to Business  Performance
CIO  - IT Management in Search of Alignment Answers

CIO Quarterly - Blending  Business and IT

CIO Update --  Offshore Outsourcing article by Faisal  Hoque

Production Credits
Elizabeth Ferrarini, Executive  Producer
Tom Parish, Host and Audio  Producer
AlarmMusic.com Production Music  Library for Broadcast, Film, Video & Post Production

Those companies that get IT alignment right experience significantly larger business growth than their peers. They also see their IT costs go down. On the hand, many companies fall prey to the IT alignment trap by over aligning and, in turn, introducing more complexity into the organization. These are the findings of a study done by C.R. (Rudy) Puryear and his colleagues at Bain & Co. In early 2007, they surveyed 500 major organizations in North American and in Europe to understand the relationship between getting IT right, and to determine the affect IT alignment has on business growth and performance. The Bain team also did in-depth interviews with about 30 of these organizations.

Drawing from the research findings, Puryear, in this podcast, explains why   organizations have become victims of the IT alignment trap and how they can avoid it. He says, "IT really matters. If you get IT right, it can be a critical enabler of business performance, profitability, and growth.  On the hand, many organizations find IT to be more of a barrier, than an enabler of business performance and growth. These organizations still haven't reached the right balance of alignment and of effectiveness. If they over align, they most likely will fall into the alignment trap. Instead, they need to step back, understand where they are, to begin to focus on effectiveness, and then to consider alignment.

Bio

C. R. (Rudy) Puryear is the leader of Bain & Company's Global IT Practice, as well as a Bain partner in Chicago. He has more than 25 years of experience advising senior executives about leveraging technology to enable strategic change. Prior to Bain, he was president and CEO of Lante Corporation, a leading eCommerce consulting company, where he managed a successful IPO in February 2000.  He also served as Andersen Consulting's (Accenture) global managing partner for eCommerce, and prior to that, was responsible for building and leading the firm's IT strategy practice. Puryear did his undergraduate and graduate studies in computer science at North Carolina State University.

Resources

Perspectives:  Rudy Puryear, Bain Consulting

Capability Sourcing at  7-Eleven

Complex  IT Will Kill Your Business

Production Credits
Elizabeth M. Ferrarini, Executive Producer

Music by 5AlarmMusic.com