InnovationIntroduction A more settled economic outlook has re-energised the corporate competitive landscape, and finding that unique market differentiator is once again the key to maximizing shareholder value and sustaining a competitive edge. To IT, this means innovation: Innovation to support a new market objective, a new line of business, a fresh customer demand. Innovation of new ideas, but in the context of a business infrastructure that is struggling to carry its own weight, and is anything but nimble. Analysts and Industry commentators alike are talking about IT Innovation as a mandatory aspect of the CIO’s remit, indeed their responsibility, to the corporation. Forrester makes their view abundantly clear, “CEOs should focus on what Forrester describes as innovation capacity: the potential for the IT function to support new products, processes, and opportunities. Successful companies will grow their IT innovation capacity” (footnote 1) So while the stated fact of Innovation strongly affecting the corporation seems almost de-facto (“The majority (71 percent) of leading CIOs polled in our IT-Enabled Innovation survey indicate that innovation was specifically part of their company’s overall core business strategy”)(footnote 2), the debate rages on how this affects the corporation, and how indeed that requirement can be fulfilled. CIO / Executive The task for the CIO would appear to be clear; that is, to act on this corporate mandate to ensure that the IT infrastructure can respond to any emerging business requirement through a program of proactive innovation. This alignment and flexibility requires the CIO to face up to the gnawing problem they already face, which is to audit what it is they have in their IT infrastructure, without which it will be impossible to determine how to innovate effectively. Architect The CTO office will be responsible for assessing, reviewing and planning the program of IT innovations and as such, their role is to ensure the right architectural and technical considerations are being met. Their ability to understand the entirety of the existing IT landscape has an important bearing on what options are available and how best to innovate. The first logical step would be to take an initial audit of that landscape and develop a systematic program for review and assessment of each piece of the jigsaw, and how it could be used or re-used in innovative ways. Technical In the same CIO.com paper as previously mentioned, the technical vehicle for innovation was given. “While IT architecture/redesigning/rationalizing was the most important (73 percent)”, it mentioned – significantly – that “older technologies” was given as the enabler for 55 percent of their IT-enabled innovations. This highlights the challenge facing the technical team, namely that while Innovation is a nice concept in theory, it cannot be assumed that these innovations can be undertaken away from the current business infrastructure. Indeed, understanding and re-using what is already there can often be the key to successful innovation. Conclusion: Innovation is Change and Must be Managed For large companies, it can often be difficult to make the suggested changes to existing applications in order to bring new innovations to market. A complex array of business process, interdependencies and undocumented usage lies beneath the surface of the IT portfolio list. To estimate based on supposition or one person’s experience alone will not be enough to correctly estimate, plan and change to support a needed innovation. A more scientific approach is required to determine the whole landscape’s current value to the business. APM, as the name suggests, is designed to manage this application portfolio, and promotes corporate innovation by taking the guesswork out of the assessment and review of the artifacts that can be taken forward to provide greater business value.
Footnote 1 - (http://www.forrester.com/Research/Document/Excerpt/0,7211,37485,00.html) Footnote 2 - http://www2.cio.com/research/surveyreport.cfm?id=86
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