Why you need to transition from just ‘IT’ to business tech before it is too late?

Technology is impacting and transforming everyday lives and businesses in an unprecedented manner. However, many IT departments are just that – looking after IT systems and focused on defining and standardizing IT services, service catalogues, prediction of unit costs, project management methodology, implementation standards and architecture standards. In this article, we explain why the role of IT departments needs to change – and why in the modern world, businesses need to transition these departments to look at how to exploit technology to become more successful.

In the past few years, IT units within businesses have focused on implementing systems and processes to decrease costs and increase productivity. It was a very operational role, and many succeeded in this objective.

That was great, you would think. To some extent, the IT units were understood and ‘tamed’. In theory this would then enable a focus on innovation and business technology rather than IT in its conventional sense; technology would then be more than just a necessary part of the company infrastructure, but it would be a gateway to building great businesses. This logic would suggest a shift of focus to business tech rather than IT – that is to harness the power of technology to grow your business and create competitive advantage.

However, in practice this has unfortunately not happened. Many old world companies are still just using IT for IT’s sake.

As a IT architect and strategy lead, I have always challenged the concept of IT being a cost center. It never worked for me, from the very early days in my career I have only seen IT as an enabler and as a powerful tool that can give businesses the competitive edge like never before.

However, the corporate world has been guilty of being too focused on supporting and running business applications rather than spending time and effort on innovation and business tech. They have not been able to leverage technology to add value or transform the old world business models.

When I decided to call it a day from the corporate world of IT strategy and roadmaps, I was persuaded into creating Acuiti Labs to focus on transformation of the operating models and businesses using tech. Good businesses must not be allowed to fail because they are unable to leverage the potential of business tech. They will get help from Acuiti Labs.

The concept of utilising business tech to innovate is not new by any means: there have been several examples where companies have used technology to transform or even create totally new business models to change the world for ever. For instance, in the last quarter of a century, we have seen the likes of Amazon, EBay, Google, etc. who have turned conventional businesses on their head and create companies and assets that we cannot now imagine a world without. Clearly, selling and buying books or auction based buying and selling will never be the same again or searching for information.

Then look at the more recent world – the biggest content company which creates no content at all, Facebook. The largest transport company which has no vehicles, Uber. The most popular and largest accommodation provider with no properties to its name, AirBnB. The list goes on and on – this is the power of business tech.

This is leveraging technology in ways never considered possible in the past. Of course the world is lot more favorable to business tech now than it might have been in the past. Lots of different factors are now aligned ‘like alignment of the stars’ to get up from slumber and do something or get out.

We all want to know what happens next, right? The world is now bracing itself for the newer next generation tech and businesses evolving from AI, AR/VR, Big Data etc. Businesses need to up their game and take advantage of these newer capabilities. They need to incorporate these new technologies and concepts into their businesses to make quicker and better decisions to improve business performance.

At Acuiti Labs, we are working with some innovative businesses and some conventional businesses that are keen to leverage technology for business growth and for creation of competitive advantage. We are working with companies that are making the transition from IT to business tech. If technology cannot help change the way, we do business than it is a waste of some very powerful resources available to all companies. It’s time to look at how you can harness the power of next generation tech and business tech.