There is a great temptation to implement technology because it is “cool”, but for decades business and technology strategists (as well as most people in both business and technology) have realized that unless your business is to sell technology, the implementation of technology should be in support of business goals. Sometimes, technology innovations can provide entirely new ways of performing business services and allow business differentiation. In fact, there is a movement toward technology strategy being developed in collaboration with business strategy, rather than subsequently.
There are also some business functions that must be performed by every organization that are critical to business operation where, in practice, the technology organization tends to lead. One such area is “Business Continuity”, preparing for emergencies and business disruptions. This is a business responsibility which cannot be simply delegated to the technology organization, and yet it requires significant specialized expertise, and in practice tends to be developed mostly by highly trained technologists. The part of Business Continuity that deals with the recovery of data and computer systems is called “Disaster Recovery” and is a core technology operations capability. So, the technology organizations tend to provide most of the resources to help business areas develop, test, and implement Business Continuity plans. In practice, the tail wags the dog.
Best practice holds that Data Governance and Data Quality programs should be led by business managers, not IT, but there are key aspects of these programs which cannot be accomplished readily without technology support. The key skills involved in performing these functions involve process improvement and data analysis capabilities, which are skills found most frequently in technology organizations. Frequently, Data Governance and Data Quality initiatives get started in IT, but tend to be much more successful when led from business areas.
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