Disruption in business IT is now picking up momentum and the way businesses do IT is rapidly changing due to a growing realisation that medium and large organisations are very much able to respond to the pressure of consumerisation, the need to reduce costs and the ease with which businesses can now deploy new technology.
For the past few years organisations have been aware of, but somehow unable to deal with, pressure internally from employees – “why can’t I work from my iPad?” – pressure externally from customers – “I don’t want to speak to you on the phone, let me do it from an App” – and the ever present competitive pressure to reduce costs.
Now, organisations are starting to see that they are able to respond to these demands because the technologies used by the world’s leading technology companies have filtered through, become “proven” and are beginning to disrupt businesses.
Speaking at the AIIA (Australian Information Industry Association) end of year meeting Jeff Smith, CEO of Suncorp Business Services, said that the key driver of this disruption will be Amazon Web Services (the cloud IT infrastructure arm of technology giant Amazon). He says that in the same way Google made it easy to search the internet and Apple made it easy to use the internet from a phone, Amazon is making it easy for organisations to deal with rapid change in technology.
Smith has put his money where his mouth is, undertaking a project to move 2,000 of Suncorp’s applications to the cloud.
Capitalising on this disruption
So how can organisations capitalise on this disruption?
The easy answer is to be an early mover however this advantage will quickly be eroded over the medium to long term.
The better answer is people and culture. Organisations must look to engage people that can both keep up with new technology and put it to use within the organisation. These people must be supported by a culture of innovation: doing experiments, taking chances and accepting failure.