Running an Always-on, Real-Time Digital IT Organization

Digital means hyper- connectivity and interdependence. Digital transformation represents a break from the past, with a high level of impact and complexity. IT organizations have come a long way from being pure technical specialists to being strategic partners critical to achieving business growth and transformation. But how to run an always-on real-time digital IT organization?


Hyper-connectivity: The real-time digital enterprise gets “wired” without wire, the modern digital technologies provide both organizations and employees alternative to access working related information with their fingertip remotely. Therefore, IT plays a critical role in breaking down silos, and CIOs can provide the visible corporate leadership and support that is required as traditional hierarchies are challenged and dismantled. IT can empower business users with efficient digital platforms and tools to harness cross-functional communication and enforce business collaboration. Few organizations have found a way to reward the type of thinking that allows people to connect the dots and stimulate creativity and innovative problem-solving. Either at the individual or enterprise level, connecting the dots, both across and within organizational boundaries has always been a problem. Success is far more likely if CIOs and IT professionals are seen as integral team players whose efforts add multidimensional value to the deployment of collaborative team structures within the organization.
Nonstop and instant-on with digital speed: IT consumerization is the catalyst to fuel today’s fast speed, to boost employees’ productivity, to reduce the cost and to provide unique customer values. The modern enterprise needs to be non-stop, instant-on, and to leapfrog digital transformations In the digital dynamic where innovation threatens to tear down legacy systems and practices just as it generates new opportunities, it's natural to fear the unknown, question the unproven, be skeptical of the latest technology trends. The CIO needs to have an optimistic attitude, and even thing's not going so well, as positive attitude will fuel the passion, and be proactive for problem-solving. Digital IT is nonstop, keep changing, not for its own sake, but to make continuous improvement and become high-innovative. CIOs should transform self from IT managers only to also be perceived as an influential business leader, be an IT practitioner and business strategist at the same time speed up and run an instant-on digital organization.
Responsiveness: Running a real-time digital IT organization means high-responsiveness. Unfortunately the majority of IT organizations today are perceived by their business partners as the change laggard and get stuck at the lower level of maturity. Digitalization implies the full-scale changes in the way business is conducted so that simply adopting a new digital technology is not insufficient. You have to transform the company's underlying functions and organization as a whole with adjusted digital speed.  The purpose of businesses today is to amplify collective human capability and business capacity in order to compete confidently, it's also about the right timing in decision-making and problem-solving  as the latest technology trend such as social/mobile/analytics/cloud continue blurring business boundary, expand business influence and expose enterprise into high risk surrounding. Keep in mind, always do right things before doing things right. Because, if you have a process that is "wrong," the application of technology will simply make getting "wrong" quicker. A high-responsive IT should lead the way to lifting one foot and shifting the organizational structure more into participative models that better support the quantum leap in speed we are experiencing.
The goal to run a real-time digital IT organization is to create synergy and achieve digital synchronization of the entire organization. Collaboration is good, but it’s not an end in itself. Creating a context where people can collaborate where they are empowered and respected and make collective decisions is the essence of the information management.



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