Business Transformation Requires Transformational Leaders

Google's recent release of its Chrome browser has reintroduced in the media the question, "When will the browser drive the operating system into irrelevancy?" 1 The pundits who have resuscitated the debate obviously aren't friends with many IT managers, who know better. Silly questions are often useful, however, because they provoke sensible questions, such as "What does the Chrome browser release remind us about the potential direction of enterprise computing?"

One of the prime drivers for many organizations moving to agile development is to improve schedule performance. Unfortunately, many facets to schedule performance are often overlooked. Often when I ask, "In what way is your schedule performance lacking today," the answers are very fuzzy. Many managers just have some vague notion that they would like better performance.

How far can you go before you cross the line between ethical behavior and high-risk behavior? It's a question I've been asking quite a few project managers of late, and I find their responses compelling. The question is a seemingly simple one:

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) is more than simply an application-hosting model. It is an integrated service that involves implementation, hosting, and ongoing maintenance services. In addition, the technical architecture of the SaaS model constrains clients' options for customizing the application at the core level of the application (e.g., changes in data schema). Customers also have less control over the changes that are made to the application by the vendor throughout its lifecycle.

The IT shop aside, most firms find it difficult to truly become customercentric. Many firms have paid dearly for all kinds of studies on their customers, including research under the banner of voice-of-customer (VOC), customer experience, customer-relationship management (CRM) strategy, customer loyalty and retention, and good old-fashioned market research.

With an almost evangelical fervor surrounding it, the steady flow of rhetoric concerning alignment of IT with the business side of the organization assumes that if the IT organization pushes for it, business units will enthusiastically embrace it. Often, this is not true, and IT managers must prepare for those occasions when the technology organization is truly ready to transform how it interacts with business units when everyone else isn't.

In this Advisor, I'll offer a few suggestions to firms contemplating how open inflows and outflows might fit into their own innovation strategies.