In the course of a recent business technology strategy project, I prepared a presentation on the current forces of change in the IT industry and their impact on enterprise IT. I designed the presentation around the following three questions: “Is the IT industry becoming smart?”, “Does the consumerization of IT drive innovation?”, and “Is your organization prepared for the change?”. Based on Forrester’s research, I’ve provided a few directional statements that answer each question along with some links to the Forrester research reports that back them up. Enjoy the reading!

Is the IT industry becoming smart?

• Smart computing is the stealth engine of IT’s market growth
  • What Do Current Global Economic And Financial Disturbances Mean For Tech Vendors In 2011 and 2012?
  • European Information And Communications Technology Market, 2011 To 2012
  • US Tech Market Outlook: Q1 2011
  • Another Year Of Outperformance For The Tech Industry

One of our clients recently asked us: “If I pay €100 million for IT, how can I generate more value?”

I am going to answer this question in detail during the upcoming Forrester Teleconference “Managing Portfolios Of Business-Process-Oriented IT Services”, on March 23, at 11 am ET. This blog post is an invitation for you to register. Here are the key takeaways and a few supporting arguments:

1. Many IT organizations are not well-positioned to generate more business value. Forrester survey data suggest that IT organizations have not managed to improve their levels of business/IT alignment during the past three years. A majority of IT executives view the deployment of business-process-oriented models as the future of IT. But unfortunately, there are only few organizations that have implemented business-process-oriented models in IT. Most concerning: Many of the existing business process management (BPM) initiatives run outside IT. And, ironically, they look just like IT because they focus on deploying BPM tools such as application suites rather than optimizing business processes.  
    
2. IT and BPM need a common demand framework to get business technology’s (BT’s) complexity under control and generate more business value. Many IT organizations have implemented business/enterprise architecture (EA) programs to get BT’s complexity under control and generate more value from IT and BPM investments. We assert, however, that these EA programs are necessary but not sufficient. BPM and IT need a common framework, which Forrester calls demand management (DM), that takes care of five additional processes: governance, investment, performance, and risk and portfolio management.
    

Last month I launched an online self-assessment and survey tool to help you — business process change agents and architects — determine the sustainability of your business process management (BPM) change effort. The source of inspiration for the assessment criteria I used is the conclusion of the Harvard Business School's Evergreen Project.

Evergreen analyzed the impact of 200 different management "best practices" on the performance of 160 business organizations over a time period of 10 years. The researchers studied broad areas such as strategy, innovation, and business processes, as well as specific practices, and concluded that organizations that truly produce superior results excel at four fundamental practices:

1. Devise and maintain a clearly stated, focused strategy.
2. Develop and maintain flawless operational execution.
3. Develop and maintain a performance-oriented culture.
4. Build and maintain a fast, flexible, flat organizational structure.

I am talking to you, business process change agents and architects, who drive business transformations and continuous improvement initiatives. Sometimes our conversation starts from methodologies and technologies like Lean, Six Sigma, ERP, CRM, or BPM, but it almost always ends up with questions about organizational design, governance, change planning, and execution.

I believe that each process change initiative should start with a readiness assessment of the target organization. With that in mind, Forrester has developed an online self-assessment and survey tool that can help you get a feeling about where your organization stays with respect to four must-have process change capabilities: 1) strategy; 2) process execution; 3) structure; and 4) culture of performance. For Forrester, the primary objective of this survey is to get a better understanding of how companies drive business process change initiatives to success. Please take 10 minutes to get your maturity score.

Your responses will be kept strictly confidential and will only be examined in aggregate with the others who complete this survey. If you provide valid answers to all questions, you will receive the results summary. The survey should take no more than 10 minutes to complete.

If you have insights, comments, or questions relating to the survey, please add them in the comments to get additional perspective from the community.

Thank you very much for your participation!

As announced in April, SAP told us this week that it formally completed the acquisition of its longtime partner TechniData — a 500-employee company headquartered in Germany with a presence in both Asia and the United States. TechniData provides sustainability solutions in three areas: 1) health and safety; 2) product safety;  and 3) environmental compliance — for example, process consulting, software services, information on regulatory content, and managed services for EU’s REACH regulation.

Forrester Senior Analyst Holger Kisker and I had the opportunity to talk recently with Jürgen Schwab, the former chairman and CEO of TechniData; Marty Etzel, SAP’s VP of Sustainability Solutions; and Dieter Hässlein, SAP’s VP of Solutions Management for Environmental Health & Safety (EH&S). They told us that SAP has created a sustainability consulting hub accommodating more than 100 consultants, including the former TechniData staff, to support SAP’s sustainability strategy. They also explained the reasons for the acquisition: 1) focusing on content as an integral part of SAP’s sustainability strategy; 2) expanding and refining SAP’s expertise and customer base both beyond the chemicals industry and geographically, as well, in particular in Asia; and 3) improving the capabilities of SAP’s current preconfigured sustainability-related solutions.