Despite the exponential growth of computing and communications technology, the inertia of old business technology management practices still drives most investment decisions in this area. Companies spend too much money on new technology, while their business models and processes underutilize the resources they already have. Written in a compelling, conversational manner, Best Practices in Business Technology Management advises those who buy, install, and support all types of computing and communications technology, empowering them to optimize their systems in new and innovative ways.
Divided into six chapters, the book provides insight into the field, discussing decision-making, trends, alignment, optimization, processes, timing, and other areas. It includes practical hands-on advice that explores organization, the challenges of working with people, acquisition and measurement of technology, operational effectiveness, and strategic effectiveness. The best practices presented are not theoretical or untested. Rather, they are the result of trench warfare and real applications. The insights contained in this volume represent what successful companies have done—and continue to do—to optimize the business technology relationship.
A nationally-known business technology veteran, author Stephen J. Andriole has developed a perspective on the optimization of computing and communications technology based on years of experience from government, industry, academia, and the venture capital business. In this book, he demonstrates how those who buy and deploy technology can optimize their technology in a way that saves costs and provides maximum performance.
Perspectives
The 5 × 7 Business Technology Strategy
Revisiting the "IT Doesn’t Matter" Argument
Ten Things IT Should Tell Management
Ten "New Rules" for IT
Ten Questions for Everyone
Still Too Many Dollars
Preparing for the Tsunami
IT’s All about Processes
Does Any of This Sound Familiar?
Markets, Pills, and Timing
That Was Then, This Is Now
Trends That (Really) Matter
What They’re Doing
Business Technology Trends to Worry About
Collaborate/Integrate: What to Do about Business Technology
Strategy, Anyone?
Organization
Five Flavors of Alignment
Cost versus Profit Centers
Should Boards of Directors Govern Technology?
Just Enough Organization
Tuning-Up the Business Technology Organization
Would You Survive an Alignment Audit?
You Report to Who?
Who’s Minding the Technology Store?
Five Hours to Influence
Grading Industry Cultures
Whatever Happened to Mentoring, Meritocracies, and Sabbaticals?
Has Anyone Been to Nordstrom’s?
Do You Have a CTMO?
Another Audit
The Whole Context and Nothing but the (Whole) Context
What Kind of Technology Center Are You, Really?
Who’s in Control?
Discipline
Making Money with IT: Three Ideas for Revenue Generation
A Little Exercise Goes a Long Way: Internal Focus Group Problem
Of PMOs, VMOs, and XMOs: Why So Many Management Offices?
People
Time for New Skills: People Readiness for the Second Digital
Feel My Pain
IT Begins in the Classroom
Decision-Making Discipline: An Executive Course on Multicriteria
Theory versus Practice: Who Owns IT Education and Training?
Tweaking Business Technology Leadership: What Academia Can
How’s the Team Doing? An Unbalanced Scorecard
Three Brands for the Millennium
Can We Handle the Truth?
The Real Truth
Do You Speak Business?
Leadership, Likability, and Life
Politics, Culture, and You
Consultants in the Hen House
Acquisition and Measurement
Many Happy Returns
Sourcing, Sourcing Everywhere
Concepts to Clusters: The Real Technology Chasm
Vendors, Vendors Everywhere … Who’s the Fairest of Them All?
Three Reasons More Outsourcing Is Inevitable
Squeezing Willing—and Not-So-Willing—Vendors
Guerilla Budgeting
Dissenting Opinions about Outsourcing
Selling Tough Projects
What’s Your Core IT Competency? Really?
Who Pays for All This Stuff?
Who’s Measuring All This Stuff?
Security Solutions Outsourcing: It’s Time
Project Management—Yes, Again …
What to Do? Triangulating on Requirements
Sourcing the Sources: Who Does What Today? Who Wins Tomorrow?
Strategy, Applications, and Architecture Sourcing: Where There Are
Advanced Vendor Management: A Graduate Course in the Project Management Rigor (or Rigor Mortis)
Operational Effectiveness
Thin Is Beautiful
Vinfrastructure
Another Look at Open Source Software
Commodities: Where Premiums Meet Payments
Who Needs PCs?
Where Does Software Come From?
Everyone to the Woodshed
What You Need to Know about Pervasive Analytical Computing
Ten Things You Can Do Tomorrow to Improve Biz/IT Convergence
Killer Apps
Communications
Data’s Still King
Don’t Forget the Plumbing
Standards Now or (Lots of) Cash Later
Should You Buy or Rent?
Don’t Crack the Box
Data Information and Decision Making: Platforms, Analysis, and Open Source Software Redux
Strategic Effectiveness
Appropriate CRM
Web 2.0 and the Enterprise
Thinking about Web 2.0: The Right Questions for the Right Impact
The Reality of New
It’s the Data, Stupid
They Know What We Like—And Where We Are!
Back to the Future: Herding 3,000 Cats through a Worm Hole
The Consumer’s Internet: Thin Clients and Fat Hosts for Everyone
Commercializing Information Technology: A Four-Step Methodology
Business Intelligence in the Early Twenty-First Century: Models and Master Data Management for Business Intelligence and Customer
Strategies and Tactics around "New": Time for a Reality Check
Profiling Your Strategic Technology Alliances
Epilogue
Index
Biography
Stephen J. Andriole