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IT’s
role in business transformation
The
implications of changes in technology and IT are profound
for most businesses. MOHAN BABU shares the text of a recent
talk he gave at a technical university on IT’s role in business
transformation
An
extract of a talk I gave at a university recently:
It
gives me a great pleasure to be here at the beautiful campus
of your college. A few weeks ago, when Professor Ramani sent
me a note inviting me to be a part of this seminar of ‘IT’s
role in Business Transformation’, I jumped at the opportunity,
and here I am. The topic is close to my heart as a technocrat.
Having spent nearly a decade in the IT industry, I am still
fascinated by the nexus between IT and business and am trying
to find the ‘sweet spot’ where the interests of technologists
and business leaders converge.
What
is transformation?
Visualise
the transformations you have undergone in your lives. You
all probably went to good schools during your childhood and
thought of becoming engineers, doctors, scientists, astronauts,
etc. However, sometime during the course of your schooling,
you got a dose of reality. You realise that you had to change
from being a dreamy youngster to someone more focused towards
what the real world wanted. You started focusing on your priorities,
and probably is the reason why you worked hard to enroll in
professional courses, and the reason why you find yourselves
here attending this seminar on IT’s role in business transformation.
Business
transformation
The
transformation you and I underwent is not very unlike the
changes that businesses experience. Businesses as we all realise
are nothing but a collection or grouping of like minded individuals
who get together for a common goal. In most cases, the goal
is to maximise shareholder wealth and give a good Return on
Investment (RoI), to stakeholders. In order to give a sustained
return on investment and to survive and grow, business evolve,
transform and continuously change.
Business
gurus and academicians studying business transformation liken
the evolution of business to the concepts of biological evolution.
The neo-Darwinian logic is that organisational form is more
akin to nature where survival of the fittest and natural selection
leads to the evolution of the best of the breed.
Why
transform?
There
are several reasons why organisations change, evolve and transform.
Transformation could be induced by internal or external factors.
Internal change may be driven by the need to continuously
improve performance, year after year, quarter after quarter.
External changes may be driven by competitors, changing business
landscape, governmental regulations, global factors, etc.
For instance, the business model of Indian software giants
like Infosys, TCS, Wipro, et al, have undergone transformation
in the nearly two-and-half decades that they have been in
existence. And as we approach the billion dollar mark, they
are working to roll out a transformation plans which will
address the landscape of the twenty-first century.
Business
transformation could be gradual or abrupt too. Take the example
of Motorola that started business in 1928 making battery eliminators
for radios. These eliminators helped users run radio’s directly
using household electricity instead of a battery. During World
War II the company started making equipment for the military
and by the fifties became a major player in the micro-electronics’
business. The company has transformed and evolved in the nearly
a century that it has been in business with nearly 37 billion
dollars in earnings today, employing about 147,000 people
across the globe. Though the core competence of the company
remains micro electronics and communications, the company
has gradually transformed its line of business.
Transformation
and IT
Now
that we have briefly examined business transformation, a look
at the role IT plays in business transformation. I don’t have
to tell you that IT is like the lifeblood of any business,
and a data centre is the heart through which the blood or
data is pumped across the different organs: Finance, HR, Operations,
Production, Manufacturing, Sales, Marketing, etc. IT not only
helps organisations exist and operate seamlessly but also
provides the pulse, if you will. Tools and techniques of business
intelligence are routinely used by senior business leaders
and executives to gauge the operations of different initiatives
and to streamline the strategies. ERP systems attempt to provide
seamless connectivity across the different silos in business.
And, among the current trends, adoption of Web services and
pervasive infrastructures are intended to enable business
transformation with the least disruption.
The
implications of changes in technology and IT are profound
for most businesses. There are numerous examples of changes
induced by IT and changes enabled by innovative uses of information
technology. BPO, IteS, outsourcing of complex systems are
all examples of business transformations enabled by IT.
I
leave you with a quote from Charles Darwin, which is as applicable
to businesses as it was to nature. “It is not the strongest
of the species who survive, not the most intelligent, but
those who are the most adaptive to change.”
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