It will never be this slow again!

The pace of development and digital transformation in business and the private sector is incredible. Businesses and organisations that fail to harness the power of digital will be irrevocably left behind and competitors will gain competitive advantages that will be difficult and in some cases impossible to match.

If you think it's going fast today, take the opportunity and enjoy, because it will never be this slow again!

Management holds the key

Organisations where management sees IT as an investment rather than a cost create new business opportunities for their organisation and organisations that invest more in IT than their competitors are both more profitable and more efficient than these, according to the Radar Group survey.

IT is no longer something that the IT department alone manages and decides on. IT is as strategic as recruiting the right staff, the budget process, marketing planning and business development, and is often an integral part of all these areas. In other words, IT is business-critical, and a decision for management to make together with the IT department.

IT is a competitive tool and a catalyst to develop their business smarter, more efficient and faster than their competitors.

Radar Group's survey

The Radar Group survey published on 16 June 2016 clearly shows that business demands for "IT delivery" from the internal organisation are constantly increasing while the funding (IT budget) is decreasing or stagnating, with the effect that the ability to deliver from the IT organisation is decreasing!

This is referred to as "The Growing Gap" between the business and the IT organisation. Of course, there are different ways to deal with this and below you will find three concrete and basic ways to tackle it. Overall, to be successful in this shift, management must recognize that it is sitting on untapped potential in leveraging its IT investments and learn to assess the potential of technology to help grow the business.

Conversely, the IT department and the IT partner need to understand the business models of the business, get to know the customers of the business and understand their challenges so that technology can be adapted and used to the advantage of the business and not the other way around.

Three concrete tips on how to use IT as a competitive tool

• Ensure that management and decision-makers in the organisation understand how IT solutions can help strengthen the organisation's competitiveness and develop its business offering faster and more effectively than its competitors.
• Build a dynamic organisation with fast decision paths where both management, the IT organisation and selected partners can quickly evaluate, qualify, and decide on new solutions and/or changes to existing ones to continuously evolve the existing business and IT platform simultaneously.
• Recruit a Chief Digital Tour Guide (CDT) - it's happening now!

Digital tour guides lead the way

Today, companies and organisations need to link technology solutions and functions to business benefits much more clearly than before in order to measure the impact of each effort.

To create and maintain a sustainable digital strategy to actively contribute to the business, experts recommend that the organisation recruits a digital journey manager to help the business with both the strategy process and implementation.

By linking the company's objectives (sales growth, profit growth, market share, quality, etc.) to the demands, needs and expectations of its customers, the business develops a business and marketing strategy that goes hand in hand with the digital strategy, making them each other's catalysts with a common goal.

It will never be this slow again so make sure you start your digital transformation now or you will never catch up, let alone be able to overtake your competitors!

IT is an unbeatable tool for companies and organisations that want to develop and become more efficient. IT is a catalyst for existing processes in organisations and should be used proactively. Then you both improve your organisation's competitiveness and efficiency!

To get the full impact of existing and new IT investments, we have developed a methodology on how to do this in the best way! IT for Business is the name of the concept and that's exactly what IT is for, IT to support and develop business!

Click on the link below to download our comprehensive guide - IT for Business - and get in touch and we'll book you on a digital journey with our tour guides!