The internal IT organization that cannot meet the information demands of the business runs the risk of becoming marginalized and losing its right to exist. What can the CIO or IT manager possibly do to win back the confidence of the business and to (re)position his organization as a preferred partner for innovation?
Over the past few years, many IT organizations have rationalized their operations, especially with the aim to save on costs in times of economic decline. A side effect of this rationalization is that it becomes increasingly difficult these days to meet the new demands that the business makes on the IT organization with regard to innovation of products and services. Recently, Giarte observed with regard to this that innovation in practice often gets stuck in replacement of written off infrastructure through the adoption of proven technology. And especially now the business views the support of innovation at the business side by capitalizing on new technologies and introduction of new service concepts as one of the main objectives of the IT organization. A workstation migration from Windows XP to the Vista platform is apparently of a different order than exploring and successfully implementing a new distribution channel for online financial services based on Web 2.0 technology. Not just the focus but also the success of innovation projects leaves a lot to be desired: IDC research provides average success rates of only 50%.
