A few years ago, we were discussing the role of information technology (IT) specialists in business process reengineering projects with a group of chief information officers. One bitterly exclaimed, “What role? I found out that my company was starting a major reengineering project when I read about it in the Wall Street Journal.” That surprised us. But what surprised us even more was that we heard similar stories as we continued our research.
For instance, in a reengineering effort at California State Automobile Association, top managers engaged outside consultants to plan a vision for the future.1 The internal IT organization was not invited to participate in redesigning key business processes such as customer service. When IT specialists visited project team rooms after hours, they were shocked to discover that the plans for the reengineered processes would involve major changes in the IT infrastructure. Unless they began immediately to make the needed changes, IT would hamper the implementation of corporate strategy. In this case, IT was critical to the organization’s strategic initiatives, yet its own internal IT group was left out of the planning.
Reengineering is not the only situation in which IT groups are left out of decision making that clearly involves IT. We have heard CIOs talk about not being consulted when their chief executives decided to outsource their IT functions. Why... To read the complete article, login or sign-up using the form below.
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