Mark P. McDonaldI was in a meeting last week where people were talking about the evolution of what we now call IT. At the start it was called Data Processing, then it evolved into Management Information System (MIS) and now we call it Information Technology (IT) or Information Management (IM). I would like to raise the question that none of these names accurately reflect what the professionals in IT do or what we were talking about as the nature of the modern high performing IT organization.
Information and technology have become ubiquitous in the organization, its processes, its management practices etc. They are like water, everywhere, connecting everything and an essential basic element of the modern corporation. Mobility, consumerization, social media and the like are destroying the walls between the business, information and technology. Information and technology are too common to be limited to a specific organizational department known as IT just like the idea of budgeting is no longer the sole domain of Finance, everybody budgets and budgeting is part of the language of a modern firm.
This is great news as information ubiquity and criticality has been a long-term goal of this profession. It also raises the question, so what now?
We could name IT after the scope of its work? That would lead to an organization called “Administration” or “Business Operations” or “Information, process and performance,” something like that.
I don’t like any of these options as they think that we can continue to call the IT organization by the things what it manages, controls or has responsibility for, which is the basis for past names for IT.
The simple reason is that the things that IT’s scope has expanded to incorporate many things from business intelligence to business processes so we would have call IT ‘the business,’ which is obviously not going to work.
Besides naming yourself based on the content is a functional view of the world, leading to silo’s, specialization and an ‘us vs. them’ mentality. We are just starting to get over the ‘business and IT’ distinctions so there is no reason to go backward.
So what should we call IT in the future?
I don’t have an idea but would benefit from sharing yours.
Category: CIO Leadership Management Re-imagine IT Strategy Tags: Business Strategy, IT strategy, RE-imagine IT
11 responses so far ↓
1 What should we call IT in the future? May 11, 2011 at 12:13 pm
IT Today
2 Mark Smalley May 11, 2011 at 2:22 pm
Don’t know whether one name fits all purposes. Maybe an idea to think about the various applications of technology. One of the forms I’ve been using for a while is Engagement Technology – technology that helps organizations build and maintain better relationships with their clients, partners and employees. Maybe I just mean Social Media.
IT isn’t wrong but it may be too generic. Just like ‘transport’. What kind of transport? What kind of IT?
3 Pete Willis May 11, 2011 at 4:34 pm
I’m looking at 3 streams for IT – IT Services, Business Services and client engagement. These only work though under 1 umbrella term that for us is still IT. Its the all encompassing term that is so elusive.
The other challenge about renaming IT for the future is the renaming the roles. For me this is a good thing, its time to move traditional IT roles away from the perceived stereo-types of what IT staff do to a more engaged IT staffing team that is driving business value. We have roles currently that cover IT Strategy, Technology Catalyst and Innovation Officers. All still under the IT Umbrella.
4 Andrew Collier May 12, 2011 at 8:07 am
Does it really seem to be about the technology anymore? Information Technology has been so commoditized that it has become almost easy. Outsource the maintenance, send the service to the cloud, one gadget replaces another; as Mr. McDonald mentions above, IT has become “ubiquitous” in the organization. We now have several groups in a company that all have the moniker of “IT”. While these groups may all fall under the IT umbrella, the one intangible for any corporation or organization is how they use these tools to gain a competitive edge.
It used to be called “aligning IT to the business”. I see it more as enveloping technology into the business. The technology should be tool wielded by the company; however, that same tool should be invisible and almost taken for granted, much in the way that a sales person’s ability to close a deal, an attorney’s education or a carpenter’s hammer are taken for granted.
In this regard, perhaps this brings us to a roll of more internal consultant than reactive technician. Much in the way Fredrick Winslow Taylor sought to improve industrial efficiencies, IT should be looking to improve the effectiveness of technology in the manner in which it is used. If this is the case, what if we were to call it technology strategies or business centricity. These would reflect the evolution of Information Technology beyond the traditional sense, yet still ties together what is the various tenets of IT in the corporate environment that have developed over the years, but still all lives under the title of “IT”.
5 Deborah Novachick May 12, 2011 at 10:10 am
This discussion is music to my ears. A name change is long overdue. For one thing, we need a verb. And we can’t leave out the nature of the business we are automating. If we turn a law firm into a bank, that won’t work, right? For IT in a legal organization, for example, I like “Legal Engineering.” High-value, cross-discipline professionals would become “Legal Engineers.” This way of thinking not only better defines legal IT internally for the legal organization, it also defines its value proposition better for the organization’s clients. And it helps better define the value of current and potential employees and outside resourses. Or, as I like to say, “Operations is the ship.” IT is just part of it, and we are all on it together.
6 Brad Grissom May 12, 2011 at 12:16 pm
The name depends on what is included in function. I see tremendous upside in pushing the true enabling aspects (and people, processes, etc) of traditional IT directly in to the functional area they are supporting. In this sense, those people and functions are simply a part of the organization that they support. In other words, the business analyst, systems analysts, developers, project mangers, etc. should work directly in the department they are doing analysis, development, or project management for.
For core, back office, type IT services (infrastructure, help desk, security, etc) how about Enterprise Technology Services or some such. This group would be focused on the “plumbing” of IT, not on the delivery and care and feeding of the technologies that are either product or process specific.
This model, of course, depends on the reliance/integration of technology with the business as a whole. For some companies, it just isn’t there yet (and may never be). For others, technology is the way they do business. In those instances, it should in fact be a part of their business then.
7 Mark P. McDonald May 12, 2011 at 1:08 pm
Everyone, thanks so much for your comments and contribution. We but seem to be talking around the issue by describing what IT is now, its current responsibilities and functions rather than describing what it should be or should become.
To stir the pot a little, what about calling the resources now in IT
“Strategy Execution and Scale”
This name captures IT’s major production functions in terms of executing change to deliver the strategy and delivering operational scale efficiencies through the infrastructure. Its based on the outcome produced rather than the function involved in producing it.
Realizing that name would require folding in a few other things such as job design, training, etc. But what do you think?
8 Brad Grissom May 18, 2011 at 8:26 pm
Too generic for my taste. All departments within a company must execute strategy and scale (up or down)…including “IT”.
What are we trying to rename, the dynamic or static part?
9 Sergio Mayo May 27, 2011 at 6:06 am
If we want to focus on concepts like “outcomes”, “performance” and so on (which I agree) to redefine the conceot of IT, I think we should mention strategy at all. It’s true that all departments must execute strategy, but ‘former IT’ is supposed to be (or it should be) specialized in getting/understanding/exploding INFORMATION, getting knowledge from it and, finally, driving change, innovation and strategy.
If a system is composed also by people&processes… why not to recover/redefine Information Systems? I know this is many times an old-fashioned concept, but what I mean is that information+people+processes could drive our strategy (the RBV of the firm could help us to debug the concept)
10 ¿Debería IT seguir llamándose IT? « train2manage May 30, 2011 at 12:58 am
[...] reflexión de Mak McDonald acerca de cómo deberíamos llamar a IT (Information Technology) de aquí en [...]
11 karen rose acal January 4, 2012 at 8:54 am
for me, all it persons can be called professionals if he/she has a knowledge with regards to computer,like for example,he/she is a programmer …even if you could finish a 4 years course in it but still you dont know how to manage computer or even you have no skills in making programs,you could not be called a proffesionals…
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