Global manufacturer Unilever is training its IT services
departments to to play a more important role in the
business.
The transformation of the role of IT professionals into what the
company describes as business partners aims at enabling IT staff to
make technology decisions based on what the business wants to
achieve. In the past IT staff were not involved in the
decision-making process, but merely executed user requests.
Daryl Beck, director of IT excellence at Unilever, said the
company wanted IT professionals to acquire skills that would allow
them to engage in "strategic conversations with the business
leaders".
He said that as businesses increasingly outsourced IT support
and development the IT professional had to be able to talk to
business leaders about the delivery of the business strategy and
how IT could contribute.
Unilever is procuring many commodity IT services through
multiple suppliers, said Beck, which means the company's in-house
IT professionals are responsible for managing partner networks and
outsourced relationships.
"These IT business partners now need skills such as supplier
relationship management, facilitation and communication as well as
consultation skills not usually associated with the traditional IT
professional's role," Beck said.
Unilever partnered with three training organisations to develop
the training programme, which focuses on consulting, relationship
management, change management and personal development skills.
No single training company was able to provide the whole
combination, so the company selected the most approriate tools and
techniques for its programme from
QA-IQ,
Quantic
Group and
McLane
Group.
Beck said the programme was already delivering results.
"We have started to see a positive change in the image of IT and
IT having an influence in the business," he said.
Unilever plans to have its IT transformation programme
accredited by the Information Systems Examination Board (ISEB) or
similar organisation.
However, Beck said that he would make sure that accreditation
went further than just passing exams, and included an assessment by
the business, peers and managers of candidates' professionalism in
terms of their actual output.
Since mid-2006, 300 IT employees have entered the programme
across Unilever's operations in Europe. The company plans to extend
the programme to the Americas and other regions this year.
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