IT convergence

In the new global business age, organizations need to leverage technology organization expertise for business benefit more than ever. Too often, technology organizations focus on technology for the sake of technology, rather than for how it might improve products and services or how it might create more customer focus.

In today’s competitive global economy, filled with international economic instability, no part of the enterprise can afford to move very far from what pays the bills. If your SAP or IT organization is focused completely on technology solutions, you lose sight of what is important to the business. In other words, you fail to address the customers: customer retention, acquisition, loyalty, satisfaction, and experience. Without customers, you have no growth or revenue. Without growth or revenue, you have no need for that expensive SAP or IT investment.

Finding SAP IT Convergence in Innovation and Customer Focus

An SAP organization trying to move toward genuine IT convergence needs a dynamic shift away from back office or operational focus. To do this, you need a deeper and more meaningful understanding of business itself. You need a focus on the organization’s products or services (i.e. innovation, read Process Execution of Business and IT Innovation), and then how those products or services are marketed and sold.

This emphasis on IT convergence, especially in the SAP enterprise, is to prepare your organization for the changes that are beginning to shape the future of enterprise applications, or “ERP III” (for a detailed explanation of ERP, ERP II, and ERP III, see ERP vs. ERP II vs. ERP III Future Enterprise Applications).

So what is ERP III? ERP III is the next generation of enterprise applications that leverage social media (or other collaborative tools) in new ways to integrate customers into the borderless enterprise.

Without a clearer focus on customers as well as innovation in the enterprise, or “how business gets done,” the SAP and overall IT organization merely become an expensive operational support layer. Without a genuine business focus, the organization becomes a commodity to be outsourced.

How Can You Transition to Full SAP IT Convergence?

With these points stated, hopefully the need for full convergence is clear. However, if this need is still not clear enough, consider another element or your SAP or IT organization: the pay structure for your SAP skills. Your SAP staff is likely paid equivalent salaries to senior-level employees at your company. In some cases, they may make as much as some of the junior executives. Then remind yourself: this pay range is for non-management positions. We have to consider what we need to change the organization to achieve convergence.

From the last few posts, as well as my own experience, here is my “short list” of important things to do to achieve convergence:

  • Promote Steering Committee Engagement and Roadmap Management.
  • Pursue business executive sponsorship, but don’t wait for it to get started.
  • Engage at all levels of the organization.
  • Employ an MBA in the IT organization.
  • Conduct one or more pilot programs, and capture lessons learned.
    • Start a communication program.
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    • Exchange staff program to integrate the IT organization into the business.
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    • Hold IT staff accountable for participation.
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    • Don’t let available tools stifle participation or innovation.
  • Invest in non-technical IT training.
    • Public speaking
    • Presentation skills
    • Meeting skills
    • Facilitation skills
    • Questioning and Negotiation
    • Conflict management and resolution
    • Managerial skills

Finally, I will offer some insight on two other areas. Because of how common mobile devices are today, you need to ensure that technology solutions are “device agnostic.” In other words, as employees begin to provide their own smartphones, be ready to support them. If your organization is tasked with the cost for the plans and hardware, supporting employee-provided mobile devices is cheaper even with the additional support overhead. On the second front, you can find business direct-buy purchases of technology. As my last post pointed out, because of what the business perceives as a lack of responsiveness to their needs, they are making more of their own direct technology purchases. Learn to live with this and engage in more of an internal consulting role, so that the solutions are a better fit for the business and the SAP or IT organization.

How you approach the future for your technology organization — isolation, alignment, or convergence — will determine how valuable you are to the business in the future. And with today’s competitive landscape combined with the economic struggles, it is more important than ever to demonstrate business value.

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