Business Transformation Requires Transformational Leaders

I am once again back at my local McDonald’s sipping a cup of coffee and eyeing the competitive landscape that continues to change before me. This particular McDonald’s sits in Central Park, Virginia, one of the largest concentrations of retail stores in the US.

There are those lucky few: the ones who strive, thrive, and succeed in spite of the chaos and confusion in the ever-changing landscape of IT.

In past Executive Updates, I have examined various issues relating to executing mobile applications in response to increased consumer demand for access to websites via mobile devices as well as some decision frameworks for determining the best operating system for your organization's mobile applications.

A remarkably prescient group of early technology pioneers first conceived the vision underlying modern, Internet-based IT value creation. In a 1945 Atlantic Magazine article, "As We May Think," Vannevar Bush anticipated the interconnectedness and indexing structures of the Web. Later, in 1968, J.C.R.

I've been examining the application of BI and data warehousing in education. Like organizations in other lines of business, educational institutions are seeking to reap the benefits offered through better data management and the application of BI analytics.

As we pointed out in Part I of this two-part Executive Report series, some may argue that IT's capacity to contribute to business competitiveness has faded, but we suggest instead that it has evolved and expanded, maturing and changing within a subset of companies that have effectively managed to use IT in various ways. However, it's important to note that not all companies achieve equal success with their mature approaches to IT-based capability and value creation.