Ideally, IT spending is driven by the need to meet business requirements. Business leaders want IT to be focused on business results, innovation, and continuous improvement. The end result should be the strategic, prioritized acceleration of business activities, processes, competencies, and models to fully leverage the changes and opportunities offered by digital technologies and maximize their impact.

Employees today are more tech-savvy; they’re aware of the vast technology options available to them, and more confident to adopt solutions on their own. As we move farther and faster into a business world defined by cloud, mobile devices, and all things digital, IT professionals need to become business consultants as well as tech experts – and employees outside the IT team need the technical background to participate more actively in the process.

Metrics for measuring collaboration need to be in place to tangibly demonstrate the value of IT efforts across the organization in terms of revenue growth, customer loyalty or cost-savings. The IT department needs to become a learning resource for the entire business, bringing end users up to speed on emerging technologies, helpful tools, and productivity shortcuts, and providing regular cybersecurity workshops. Tools and processes need to be implemented that make huge volumes of data more manageable for non-IT departments. A center of excellence should promote cross-functional collaboration, aligning the activities and approaches of diverse teams and establishing internal standards that boost productivity and effectiveness so everyone can focus on their core activities. A centralized management structure should ensure that the entire organization, not just a single department or division, benefits from their work.

An approach based on a blend of technology and business leads to IT objectives that are fully aligned to your business targets. Standardized processes are in place that speed up development and facilitate cross-functional collaboration between teams in IT and business. Your company is able to solve problems more creatively and take an analytical approach to understanding business challenges and identifying appropriate tools. The entire organization runs more smoothly and is more effective as a result.

How can HR, finance, sales and so on get more involved in making strategic technology decisions? How can we establish flexible, responsive teams that are able to manage projects across technical and business departments?