The Slow Boat To Business-IT Alignment (Part 2) Chapel Hill NC

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Originally published at Internet.com

Let's play Q&A. Your answers may clue you into whether you're thinking strategically about business-technology alignment - and whether your organization is too.

1) What's the first thing that comes to mind when you think about business process management?

* a) The complexity of your IT environment and the difficulties of including existing systems into new business processes. * b) How your business needs to change to improve relationships with customers and partners.

Anyone who answered "a" may be in the majority - but the majority isn't always right. In the 2006 SIM (Society for Information Management) IT Trends survey, business process management fell off the top 10 list of IT management concerns, at the same time that it made its first appearance on the list of top six application and technology developments.

Jerry Luftman, vice president of chapter relations at SIM and also the professor and associate dean of graduate IS programs at Stevens Institute of Technology, argues it should be on both lists.

"My concern is that IT people are falling back and now considering BPM a technology issue and not a business issue," he says. "They're going to get themselves into trouble, because if you just focus on the technology and not the changes that the business needs to make to ensure the success and the value of the technology, you won't get it."

2) When planning an IT hire, do you consider any factors beyond a potential employees' technical skills?

Specifically, are you thinking about their knowledge of the industry? In the SIM survey, that ranked No. 8 out of 10 skills desired in entry-level employees, and it didn't show up at all on the top 10 list of mid-level hires' skills.

"They're not quite 100%-focused on the skills they need to be," says Luftman. If they don't come in with that knowledge, organizations need to be willing to invest in helping IT pros learn about their industry. The marriage of industry knowledge and technical skills equals competitive advantage.

3) Who's your boss?

One disheartening finding on the survey this year is that more CIOs are reporting to CFOs this year than to COOs. Nearly 26% of those surveyed say they report to CFOs, up from about 22% last year. And only about 16% are reporting to COOs this year, down from almost 21% in 2005. The number of CIOs reporting to CEOs grew, but only by about 3%.

Reporting to the bean-counters may indicate that your company isn't viewing its IT group as an innovation engine.

"The last place a CIO should report to is the CFO," says Luftman. "You'll be treated as a cost. We have to start pushing hard to get IT treated as an investment or true source of revenue."