No one knows more about building the next generation enterprise than Vaughan Merlyn, executive vice president of BSG Concours, a unit of the BSG Alliance. In addition to transforming itself into a next generation enterprise, BSG Concours focuses on helping CIOs and other business executives transform the performance of IT organizations, align IT and business strategies, and carry out technology-enabled business change.

In this podcast, Merlyn explains the three levels of the Business IT Maturity model, which lead to the next generation enterprise. Each model level has a demand side maturity (What is the appetite like for IT?) and a supply side maturity. (How can the organization satisfy that appetite and keep it stimulated?) In level one, business executives worry about the expense of IT more than the demand for it. IT in the level one supply side exists to keep the lights on. In level two, the demand side becomes more aware of enterprise processes as driven by the siloed functional business units, such as HR and marketing. The supply side starts to automate the enterprise with systems, such as ERP and CRM.

Level 3 of the Business IT Maturity model presents a distinct departure from the other two levels. The appetite for the demand maturity hungers for innovation, and growth. Merlyn says that it's no longer an enterprise process, but both an intra-enterprise process and inter-enterprise process. Meanwhile, the IT supply side becomes more collaborative, agile, innovative -- on top of all of the level two enterprise stuff.

Merlyn says that being a maturity model, the level one stuff never goes away, and people develop a higher appetite for it. He says, "Many companies today fall into the level two space. On the other hand, high-technology companies, financial services firms, or Web-based companies, such as google.com, have made it to level three. These companies invest more in technology that the others. Most of them have started to reap the benefits of service-oriented architecture."

In this podcast, he also explains why CIOs need to care about this, and why best IT practices, such as the IT Infrastructure Library, are necessary, but not sufficient to reach level three of the Business IT Maturity model. He says, "If CIOs have a level three construct, they can get any business executive to appreciate the value of IT to the organization."

Bio

Vaughan Merlyn is executive vice president of BSG Concours, a unit of BSG Alliance. He oversees the IT segment of BSG Concours' multi-client research, executive education and insight, and advisory services. He has helped numerous Fortune 500 companies to articulate their business-IT strategies, transform IT capabilities, and to increase the value they realize from technology.

Merlyn co-authored the book, Development Effectiveness: Strategies for IS Organizational Transition, and wrote the Annual CASE Report, published by CASE Research. He has spoken more than 450 major conferences and seminars around the world.

Previously Vaughan was a partner at Ernst & Young’s Center for Business Innovation, where he headed the firm’s global research into IT effectiveness and business change implementation. He received his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Salford in the United Kingdom.

Resources
IT Organization Circa 2017 -- The Changing Role of IT
Strategies for Organizational Transition
The Unwritten Rules of IT Business Maturity

Production Credits
Elizabeth M. Ferrarini, Executive Producer
Tom Parish, Host and Audio Producer
5AlarmMusic.com, Music