What is the significance of “Business-Focused IT”?

"Business-Focused IT" brings a whole new meaning to the alignment and governance of IT and radically increases the chances of successful business outcomes from business and IT change programmes.  It is based on practical experience, a sustained interest in service quality, and an ongoing academic research programme.  By comparing the business experience with the business need we provide a context for all types of IT service and for whatever IT management tools and delivery mechanisms we choose to use both now and in the future. This makes it an ideal management approach for agile development, process automation, SOA, outsourced IT, cloud/utility computing, unified communications and anything that may follow. It tells us how well we are doing in real terms regardless of who is providing the service.  It is provides an independent way of checking the implementation of any IT resource based management tools (frameworks, methods, and standards) and much more.  It can radically improve service quality and the service experience, eliminate perception gaps, save money by reducing the possibilities of unnecessary investment in process or solutions, and open up more possibilities for business and technology (including the prospect of new industry models).  The drivers for using "Business-Focused IT" are as follows:

• Any perceived service requirement gap.
• Any perceived perception gap (i.e. where the IT view and business views of service performnce differ). 
• Any business or IT transformation or change programme.
• A need to improve the reality gap (the business outcomes or success rates of IT projects).
• A need to improve the alignment of IT.
• A need to improve the business governance of IT.
• A need to accelerate "Lean".
• A need to accelerate the convergence of IT and the business (e.g. through BPM and/or SOA).
• A need to accelerate the commoditisation of IT (e.g. through SOA, cloud computing or other enabling technologies).

What started as a passion for IT service excellence, then an understanding of how to achieve it, then became a book and has now become a research programmme aimed at maximising the business impact of IT.  Contact us for more information on how you can benefit from working with us.