Tearing down walls to meld IT and business

It stands to reason that taking full advantage of information technology in today's economic climate means that a company must have business leaders who "get" IT and IT leaders who "get" business. What's more, there should probably be a fluid understanding between the two sets of leadership. To test this notion, Susan Cramm surveyed companies about the relationships between the business and IT sides of the house. 

Not surprisingly, in most IT-savvy organizations--those with "IT smarts," as Cramm puts it in a post at Harvard Business Review--business leaders are the driving force behind changes enabled by IT. As organizations become smarter about technology, they begin to manage it differently. In about two-thirds of "IT smart" organizations, top executives not only require that employees take advantage of IT assets, but they use the technology themselves.  

For a concrete illustration of the trend toward bridging the gap between business and IT, take a look at Northwestern Mutual Life. The insurance company's CIO, Tim Schaefer, noticed not long ago that his IT professionals were setting themselves apart from the rest of the business, and it wasn't helping anyone. 

"We were somehow different. We had all this special knowledge. So this whole concept of black box, and the gap in the relationship, we came to realize was of our own doing," Schaefer told InformationWeek. In an excellent look at the strategic IT changes underway at Northwestern Mutual, InformationWeek's Chris Murphy reports that Schaefer is trying to remake the company's IT culture, beginning with a request that IT leaders transform themselves into business leaders.

For more:
- see Susan Cramm's post at Harvard Business Review
- see Chris Murphy's article at InformationWeek

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