Perspective: The rise and fall of IT

A little history: The discipline of running computers in large companies was once called "data processing." The name made sense because it was all about mainframe computers spitting out piles of green-bar paper inscribed with numbers.

As word processors, personal computers, mini-computers and other interlopers came on the scene in the early 1980s, the DP term was dropped in favor of "management information systems." In the early 1990s, the cool new term became "information technology." This moniker in no way conveyed the explosion of the Web, mobile devices, mobile phones, e-mail and e-commerce that techies were called on to manage--but it stuck.

In the old days of DP, MIS and IT, the use of computers in companies was about tracking the business. Computers provided a retrospective snap shot (think financials or sales records) but were not used to actively operate the business--for example, developing products, selling, manufacturing or touching the customer.

If you are the head of IT, you are no better than a glorified librarian, dispensing information.

With the advent of the Web, there is now a wire from every company to every customer. Technology pervades most aspects of the business. Disagree with me? Do the scream test: Walk around your company and pull out all of the plugs from the wall. Take it all down. Then listen for the high-pitched wail from employees who can't do their work--who can't service customers, can't sell, can't develop, can't collaborate. My bet is that your company will lose millions of dollars an hour without technology. If you're like Goldman Sachs or Barclays Bank, you'll lose hundreds of millions of dollars an hour.

So here's the punch line: IT is no longer an appropriate term for the gear, the discipline of running the gear, or the industry. I propose that we replace it with the term "business technology," or BT. This conveys the fact that business is technology and technology is business.

Who cares? Why would I waste my time and yours in a renaming exercise? Because the job has changed, and it's time to acknowledge that fact. New job, new expectations, new name. If you are the head of IT, you are no better than a glorified librarian, dispensing information. In contrast, if you are the head of BT, you are shoulder-to-shoulder with fellow executives who are running the operation. You're focused on improving process and finding new sources of revenue. You apply technology for business results, not as a way to create information of questionable value.

As the people who run BT, techies are forced to engage in a discussion of process, customers and operations, not esoteric references to SOA, Web services and storage management. The CEO and executive team get the message that the BT function can be a legitimate partner in driving revenue, profit and market share.

Once IT becomes BT, what are we going to call the CIO? Ditch "information" and go to "chief business technologist" (CBT). Will the term BT work for government? The argument might be, "Hey, I like it, but I work for the federal government, which is not a business." But according to Dictionary.com, the definition of business is "a specific occupation or pursuit." The business of the Internal Revenue Service in the U.S. is to collect taxes--and it can use business technology to do that more efficiently (God forbid).

To summarize: The function in large companies that manages computers and networks is now business technology. The industry is now renamed BT, as in, "The largest software company in the BT industry is Microsoft." And the equipment (the computers, storage, software, networks, and so on) is now covered by the term "BT systems," as in, "We have great BT systems at our company."

I may be tilting at windmills, but as of this moment, I'm going on a campaign to dump IT in favor of BT. Hey, I'd love to have you join the cause.

Biography
George Colony is chairman and chief executive officer of Forrester Research.

More Perspectives

[lordbear]

CBT

For those familiar with an acronym of the same letters used to refer to certain obscure practices among consenting adults, the irony is not lost.

Being a CBT has to a bit like being on the receiving end of CBT. :)

[ContrastingSounds]

Isn't a CFO a CBT, too?

A CBT would presumably be a business expert. That should describe the CEO, the CFO, the COO, the CMO, etc. "Chief Information Officer" actually provides some indication of what the job involves.

It could be argued that sophisticated financial instruments qualify for the description "business technology" i.e. application of complex mathematical science to practical business issues (you will certainly hear some finance experts refering to financial instruments as "technologies"). So the CFO is a CBT, too.

The change adds no value, and just exposes the IT profession to potential ridicule. Making a big thing ("hey, I'm a business guy, not an IT guy") of something that is simply expected of a CxO could be perceived as demonstrating inexperience.

[1youngguy]

"Hammer Meets Nail", by George Colony

You hit it perfectly George! Otherwise, we're all relegated to changing backup tapes for a living, making minimum wage. I'm in automotive, and we've got to be creative, flexible, and fast for anything that comes up. It's all about using/making/finding the right technology solutions to better the business, before the competition figures out what you're doing. You've inspired me. I'm gonna see if I can get my business cards changed...

[technoguys]

But is the business buying the new flavor of IT's snake oil

That IT should think pro-business & work in tandem with business is almost a rhetoric.

From SOA to BT, while the foreplay of procreating business value with the pheromones of newer terms & concepts continues, is the business really aroused?

Or are we still construed as yet another snake oil peddler (alongwith our ERP/CRM/other vendors) where the seduction of what technology can do for the business was little more than a semi-flaccid response.

If you are an internal IT department of an organization, this may be a good time to look at the rapidly growing market of SAAS & rethink the positioning.

[dsherr1]

Rename IT, Business Technology?

Why not just call it Business Solutions? I think Nick Carr has been taken too seriously. His "insights" are interesting journalism, but not necessarily accurate history. Technology alone hasn't been competitive advantage since the mid 70's. The 80's liberated Business from the priesthood of IT (or what ever you want to call it). IT isn't falling, it is just becoming transparent. And it is that transparency which provides the business agility to be highly competitive.

[Macsaresafer]

Data Processing, MIS, IT, BT... doesn't matter.

Whatever you call it, you're still stuck with the basic fact that
most IT departments are more concerned with their own political
power within the company than getting the right technology into
the hands of the users.

Don't believe me? In a large company with 1,000 different jobs,
the probability of Windows being the best platform for every one
of those jobs is, assuming Windows is best 95% (a very generous
assumption) of the time, only (95/100)^1000 which comes out
to: 5.3X10^-23 or approximately 1 in 18.9 Trillion-trillion. Even
for smaller companies with only 200 jobs, the odds that it's best
for all of them are about 1 in 28,528.

With those astronomical odds, how could it be that so many IT
departments lock out practically everything but Windows? The
answer has to be that they gain something from it that they can't
get with other OSes: job security. Windows is so difficult to
maintain and use that as long as they keep it as the 'business'
standard, they'll always be needed.

The title of the article indicates an account of the eventual fall of
IT, and the freedom to truly innovate that will result. That day is
long overdue.

[thomasl824]

Strategic Player

The issue here is, how is IT perceived by management? Does BT create direction and value for the company or is it an after thought. In my thinking, it better be the former or we'll end up being viewed as another cost center.

[1youngguy]

...cost center

Outside of an ISP or remote data centers, it's pretty rare for IT (sorry - BT) to be considered anything but 'cost centers', because IT doesn't itself normally generate sales/profits. The same is true for Finance or Payroll or HR departments. But as BT goes, the whole scope changes, to share the burden of the business with other management charged with building the busines. I like George's idea!