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Opportunity Never Sleeps: IT Leadership in an Age of Disruption, Complexity, and Risk

Posted By: arundhati
Opportunity Never Sleeps: IT Leadership in an Age of Disruption, Complexity, and Risk

William D. Reed, "Opportunity Never Sleeps: IT Leadership in an Age of Disruption, Complexity, and Risk"
2016 | ASIN: B01AX84EJG | 275 pages | EPUB | 1 MB

We are living in an Age of Disruption, Complexity, and Risk. The global economy is undergoing massive changes. Today, businesses sticking with the status quo for too long are losing market share and confronting shrinking profit margins. The outcomes of yesterday are not enough for an economy undergoing transformative change in value proposition and consumer demands. However, for those who think differently, work smarter, and are ready to lead, there are opportunities to thrive.

IT is at the center of these market changes powered by new technology. This has resulted in the transformation in how we work, live, and play. IT is made up of talented workers across a wide spectrum of roles, responsibilities, and job titles. IT touches almost every aspect of the operations of business today.

IT designs, builds, protects, and support the technology infrastructure that make our modern digital economy possible – from running the service desk, to supporting user devices and desktops, to managing the servers and storage that run business applications, to writing the software code, all the way to engaging the c-suite in planning and strategy. To the business and end users, IT is one monolithic entity that either helping or getting in the way of productivity.

IT has never been under more pressure to deliver for their businesses. No longer just responsible for keeping the lights on and toiling in the background, IT is needed up front, to help directly engage the customer experience to drive business growth. Technology is the engine, data is the fuel, and software code are the brains in the digital economy.

IT has to move up to the front seat with the business to help navigate the uncertain roads ahead, enable new market value, and confront increasingly dangerous cyber threats. Today, organizations need IT more than ever before.

However, for far too many teams in far too many industries, IT is distracted fighting preventable fires. The speed to deliver business value is slowed down by manual tasks, countless hand offs, endless meetings, decision overload, and too much finger pointing. IT is being pulled in too many directions by the constant business changes caused by market disruptions.

IT is mired in the complexity of its own technology to power new business initiatives, at times making it difficult for the business to use. IT is running in silos. This is in stark contrast to what should be the focus: helping your businesses win.

And if market and organizational challenges were not enough, IT is under extreme pressure to avoid unwanted business outcomes and damage from cyber-attacks. As IT battles to keep pace, it is confronted by criminals, nation states, and terrorists making use of the very same technology and infrastructure as everyone else us to carry out their acts.

Today’s IT has 4 simultaneous mandates: enablement, operations, protection, and innovation. And if all 4 are not done well, market forces are apt to render a verdict on their business as irrelevant.

This book lays the groundwork for how to approach the major challenges and mandates in front of IT.

In Part I, we look at the Challenges in front of us: market disruptions, growing technological complexities, and an increasingly risky business climate. In Part II, we transition into getting things done through enabling digital capabilities for new business functionality and helping our organization make better decisions by transforming data into useful operational insights. We will take a system level view of how we work in order to improve our time to deliver value and begin to alter the cost model of cyberattacks. In Part III, we discuss transformation, transitioning from our current state to a more desired state.

When the status quo is no longer working for us, change is needed. IT should lead it!