IT Value Stack

A corporate cure for bad circulation

It is no secret that the efficient circulation of blood around one's body is critical to good health. Obstructing this flow can have fatal consequences. Similarly, efficient circulation is critical to the health of the body corporate.

I refer specifically to the flow of data, information, knowledge and wisdom to those that need it, when and where they need it.

The high cost of labour will drive the need to "sweat" more value from the staff. This will only be achieved if they are empowered to make intelligent business-sensitive decisions at every level down to the shop floor. Organisations with poor circulation will suffer the consequences.

>>>Read the rest of my Financial Times column, "A corporate cure for bad circulation" on the Financial TImes website.

Users want service, not technology

It was interesting to read Serge Lescouarnec's recent post about cell phones. In his blog he gives a real example of the user, in this case, a buyer, that is bombarded with technology detail when actually he requires service. This is something I covered in my latest FT column, Users want service, not technology.

Serge also points out that he reluctantly accepts this state of affairs because the alternatives seem even worse. It is for this reason that many IT functions are not service oriented. Not being in competition to win the users' business they don't need to try. Somehow or other we need to get the IT function to raise their game. Enter the outsourcers.