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Insight
With this issue of Cutter Benchmark Review, we return our focus to the strategic role of the IS function and to issues of innovation. We do so on the basis of the recognition that it is the norm today for the IT shop to be, or have the potential to be, a boundary-spanning function.
Like marketing, the IS function in organizations can be viewed as a "boundary spanner"1 -- a function that attempts to influence external environmental elements and processes -- since boundary spanning primarily concerns the exchange of information.2 The IS function deals with users within its home organization (or perhaps more correctly, its internal customers), and, increasingly, nowadays it also crosses organizational boundaries to interface with the enterprise’s external customers by means of dat
A survey such as the one conducted for this issue of CBR that is intended to gain insight into the strategic orientation of organizations and businesses is something that is timely and pertinent in today's complex, fast-moving, competitive environment. The subject is especially intriguing in light of the tremendous amount of focus on innovation in the business world. How does an organization's strategic orientation toward customers and product development affect its ability to innovate? How does a business both view and treat its customers as a part of its overall strategy?
This issue of CBR focuses on a very high-level topic, beginning with an evaluation of the role of the IS function within and outside of the organization. The inescapable trend is that of the IT shop increasingly being called upon to interact directly with customers and partners outside of the firm's boundaries. While the trend is clear, how to manage it and take advantage of it is much less so.
Customer collaboration is a cornerstone of agile development, but it is also one of the more difficult aspects of implementing agile. Of course, lack of customer involvement isn't unique to agile development -- software developers have had problems in this area ever since software entered organizational life.
One of the most important things that an IT executive must remember is where the money that pays for new equipment, IT employee salaries, software licenses, and so on, comes from. When I pose this question to senior managers, the reply I most often get has to do with budgets or overhead. While technically correct, these answers don't get to the heart of the question.
