Every key decision maker in business, regardless of their role, will face a technology decision at least once in their professional career. The goal is to ensure that the professional is best equipped with the knowledge and insight to make the best decision around IT implementation. A key consideration for any technology solution revolves around four key pillars. It must provide HIGH business VALUE; have LOW COST relative to the expected business value; generate a RAPID ROI to payback the stakeholder’s investment in the project and carry with it a LOW RISK of failure.
What follows are some ways to best overcome challenges in terms of IT and business executives collaborating on technology projects. Understanding how to empower both IT and business decision makers to collaborate is key to maintaining your competitive advantage.
Why Collaborate?
Collaboration is the key to the long-term success and while it might be difficult at first to implement, IT purchasing decisions should not rest only on the recommendations of the IT department, but rather be an engaged, invested and empowering decision process between business solution users and the IT department who supports them.
Using a race car analogy, you would view the IT people as the very necessary pit crew who know everything about how the car is put together and how it should run. The crew chief is responsible for making sure the pit crew works together to keep the engine in top-performing condition but he’s still not the one driving the car. That’s for the driver and in terms of business it’s the business executives leading the race to get their product to market more expediently and smoothly than their competitors.
The driver has to be able to make split-second decisions and help the car respond proactively to any challenges on the track. But the key is that one cannot win without the other. The pit crew needs the driver and the driver needs the pit crew in order to have a successful team and win the race.
IT and Business Execs Who Focus on Collaboration Succeed
As companies face global competitive challenges it’s vital for them to have both the IT (pit crew) and the business executive (driver) collaborating to beat the competitors in the marketplace (track).
The IT and the business-side have to understand that long-term it’s going to ease everyone’s pain points to work closely together. No longer will all the blame lie in the IT department’s lap. On the business-side this type of collaboration empowers the business executive’s usage of all the tools available to him.
In this race for global market share, IT provides the technical expertise to verify the solution will work in the existing environment while the business unit builds ownership for the product in terms of using the application to its desired end.
A collaborative effort boosts the speed and power of a business’ ability to get products to market. Businesses need to get new products out to the market faster and faster to win their competitive race. The more complex your product – such as industrial equipment or commercial insurance – the more difficult this can be. Providing product information to sales teams, dealers and other channels on their desktop can speed this process. But relying solely on IT to convert the product needs for the business units into a software solution can significantly slow their market response in a time when businesses must be very agile.
Oftentimes companies will throw a decision over the wall to IT and say, “Give me the application that’s going to solve my problem.” However, the real challenge lies in ensuring that both IT and the business-side work together to find the best solution.
Source: Luigi FDV
Planting the Seed for Collaboration (Who Does What?)
Companies must start by planting a seed in terms of germinating successful collaboration. First plant the seed and assist both sides to understand the benefits of collaboration, because there are two very different objectives that have to come together for success.
On the business unit side, IT’s job is to implement the product knowledge. This includes all the product data, user experience and user interface which impacts how the company sells in the marketplace. All the solutions and the collaboration have to be market-driven and the product side has to deliver what the market wants.
In the past, while it has served companies to develop their own solutions or configurations, it only serves them well in the short term. In the long run, it costs companies more time and money to keep these internal non-collaborative solutions meeting the needs of either constituent.
Take the case of a leading manufacturer of ventilation equipment, with sales of excess in $475 million annually. For this company, it was especially challenging because the business units were trying not only to build a current product but also to introduce new products concurrently. Getting the product knowledge implemented into their sales tool was time-consuming for this company.
Bottlenecks and IT Resolution
Companies frequently incur a bottleneck in the IT department. IT is often tasked to translate product knowledge gathered from different business units and implement it into the sales tool. This can lead to many product errors which have to be tested, reconfigured and solved. It also can cause significant additional added costs due to confusing work instructions, lost time and rework. One of the most significant exposures of incorrect product information is an unhappy customer and the loss of future business from that customer forever.
The challenge lies in effectively explaining to IT the product knowledge so they can get it implemented correctly. In the ventilation equipment company’s case, the product experts were in the business units – not the IT department – so many wasted hours could have been avoided with proactive collaboration on both sides.
If you have IT responsible for everything, then you’re going to have them on the hot seat all the time, and business units won’t always (if ever) truly get the resolution they need. This type of pressure builds a dysfunctional relationship and costs a fortune to the company in terms of productivity and improved business processes.
Instead, a collaborative engagement between both sides offers immediate benefits: it allows IT to control the framework of an application, and allows business units to control the business application itself. This includes having the capability to control the rules, knowledge, and customization of the solution for their specific needs.
Enabling this control lets businesses take ownership and react with speed when new features or functions are required. This is an improvement over describing what you need to IT and hoping they understand and can create the right fit for business units.
Everyone Has a Stake in the Race
Giving the business-side a stake in the process lets them incorporate necessary knowledge including: product rules, product data, how they sell their product, and how they position themselves in the market and with customers.
The most compelling benefit to dual collaboration is that it enables businesses to go to market faster, and be proactively responsive to customer demands.
When companies choose to collaborate, the results can be seen very quickly not only in terms of the whole teams working for the greater good of the customer, but also in terms of exceeding sales and being able to compete more adeptly in the market.
As in NASCAR, it is so in business, collaboration must come from the top down and everyone needs to have a stake in it being successful.
Once everyone takes ownership for their part and knows their roles, all the units can move forward together instead of in a dysfunctional fashion.
Now that’s the way to speed past the checkered flag and win the race in business.
Images sources:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/soldiersmediacenter/3855375117/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/luigistrano/502363112/
Courtesy - Jerry Miller
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