Many businesses do not appreciate the ability of IT to make
or break competitive advantage, and getting chief executives to
understand this is a key task for IT directors.
That is the advice George Cox, director general of the Institute of
Directors, gave recently at a Black Raven conference for IT
directors on the future of IT, supported by Computer Weekly.
Cox, founder of the Butler-Cox consultancy and former UK head of
Unisys, said, "Although nobody doubts the criticality of IT to
business operations, business does not fully understand the
contribution IT can make to competitive advantage.
"You have to experience it. If you see your competition steal a
march on you, you want to respond but you are unable to," he
said.
"That is what happened to Liffe, the London futures market, when
Deutsche Bourse, the Frankfurt stock exchange, implemented
electronic trading. Liffe had to respond. It became a matter of
life or death for them."
IT directors should be ahead of the game in alerting management, he
said. It would help if directors thought and acted like
business-people, rather than acting as heads of a business
function, he said.
IT directors should be more like corporate lawyers, go to business
conferences, get general management qualifications and not take
slide presentations into board meetings.
IT directors should also get out more. "At general business events
I see finance people, marketeers, and engineers but I do not see
many IT people," Cox said.
"IT directors go to IT events. They should play more of a part of
the business circuit. If you want to understand fish you have to go
swimming with them.
"One of the greatest pressures on business right now is that it has
to operate in an increasingly stringent regulatory environment.
That puts a tremendous imposition on making reporting requirements
more detailed and open.
"It means massive recordkeeping and IT people should be at the
forefront of the debate, anticipating the requirements and being
proactive about their impact on the business."