- Standard Infrastructure – Freeing IT to add more value
21 Apr 05 | Single Topic Reports
Firms need to standardize, simplify and even outsource many generic business functions and processes if they want to reduce costs and improve responsiveness. The same applies to IT; if it is going to participate more in the creation of advanced services and ‘smart products’, it first has to save itself from drowning in low-value work. Rather than just keeping legacy systems ticking over, IT should seek to eliminate many of them through standardization and outsourcing to specialized suppliers.
This report presents the first results of a programme of research into IT infrastructure and the increasingly strategic role it will play.
It is based on interviews with 17 large organizations in the US and Europe, most of whom believe that, in order to manage complexity and control costs, they will have to reduce many current systems to standard services and rely much more on standard ‘components’ in new systems development.
- Practical Approaches for Managing Complexity July 2006
5 Jul 06 | Presentation
Good complexity delivers value that the customer will pay for, as in the case of an Apple iPod that is internally quite complicated, yet very easy to use. At the other extreme, complicated and redundant administrative procedures clearly reduce value for both supplier and customer, and can become a real drag on the enterprise. In between are situations, such as disparate product lines and sales/marketing organizations, where the value of complexity often depends on your point of view.
Kirt Mead presents an overall approach to thinking about business complexity, for identifying good and bad complexity in business, and for managing bad complexity down over time.
See event: Managing Business and IT Complexity – Aligning Diversity with Value - Standardizing Generic IT: A Practical Approach 10-24-05
24 Oct 05 | Presentation
Kirt Mead outlines the ´Workbook´ approach that is emerging from this effort, as well as lessons learned in early applications of this cutting edge new methodology.
See event: Standardizing and Simplifying IT Infrastructure and the Installed Base – A Practical Approach (3 Nov 2005)
- Standard Infrastructure – Freeing IT to Add More Value
11 Oct 05 | Presentation
Kirt Mead reports on our research into the role that infrastructure is playing in major US and European firms, drawing implications for the future of the IT function.
See event: The Future of the IT Organization (27 - 28 Sep 2005)
- Standardizing Generic IT: A Practical Approach 9-27-05
27 Sep 05 | Presentation
Kirt Mead is working with some of 17 major firms in the US and Europe to develop a practical analysis approach (called the 'Workbook') for identifying infrastructure and processes that could be simplified, as well as the basic approach to be taken.
In this presentation, he outlines the ‘Workbook’ approach that is emerging from this effort, as well as lessons learned in early applications of this cutting edge new methodology.
- The Future of the IT Organization - Findings from the March 2005 Executive Forum
28 Jul 05 | Presentation
During the two-day Spring Executive Forum event, a number of forward thinking academics and researchers from around the world examined various aspects of the evolution of the corporate IT function. Alex Mayall summarizes key messages from sessions that included:
- understanding future business requirements
- integrating IT with key business functions
- developing strategies for agile infrastructures
- empowering a new generation of employees, most of whom have now become active consumers of technology in their own lives.
See event: The Future of the IT Organization - Findings from the March 2005 Executive Forum (28 Jul 2005) - The Future of the IT Organization-Findings from the March 2005 Executive Forum
28 Jun 05 | Presentation
During the two-day Spring Executive Forum event, a number of forward thinking academics and researchers from around the world examined various aspects of the evolution of the corporate IT function. Alex Mayall summarizes key messages from sessions that included:
- understanding future business requirements
- integrating IT with key business functions
- developing strategies for agile infrastructures
- empowering a new generation of employees, most of whom have now become active consumers of technology in their own lives.
See event: The Future of the IT Organization - Findings from the March 2005 Executive Forum (28 Jun 2005) - The future of the IT organization – A research perspective
23 Jun 05 | Position Papers
Through the following series of annotated PowerPoint slides, this paper provides an overview of the key forces that will shape the mission and structure of global IT organizations over the rest of the decad
- The ‘deep structure’ of IT
1 Jun 05 | Journal Articles
The future of IT and the business lies in moving to generic non-differentiating components connecting at standard interfaces.
The only non-standard processes will be those few that are the source of the firm’s distinctiveness and particular added value.
The emerging ‘deep structure’ of IT – which we must get right – is the placement and definition of these standard interfaces.
- Infrastructure – The Emerging Source of Value
8 Mar 05 | Presentation
More and more IT is becoming generic, and therefore part of the IT infrastructure of the firm. Not only operations and IT support to users, but many new application development projects and the application installed base are considered to be ‘infrastructure’ in many firms. But, far from representing ‘commoditization’ of IT, a properly constituted ‘thicker’ infrastructure can permit much greater agility in responding to business demands, as well as lower costs.
Kirt Mead reports on our research into the role that infrastructure is playing in major US and European firms, drawing implications for the future of the IT function.
See event: The Future of the IT Organisation