Succeeding today requires more than just good technology. To be an industry leader a company has to build and support a digitized foundation while IT-enabling anywhere it can. That's exactly why some big companies are prospering and why companies that should be growing are losing brand and revenue. While automating does have some drawbacks--the lack of flexibility is just one--the return-on-investment more than makes up for the short list of problems. In cases where digitized foundations have been put in place successfully, it's been the CIO who spearheaded the effort. It is by no means a quick fix--it involves some in-depth assessment of key factors from the operating model of the company to the governance mechanisms that need to be put in place.

For more on building a digitized foundation:
- check out this in-depth article at Optimize