许多首席信息官将能够使 IT 战略与整体战略业务计划保持一致列为关键优先事项。但是你怎么能做到这一点呢？
今年早些时候，麦肯锡制作了一个关于CEO的六大优先事项的播客。
在播客中，首席执行官们将组织弹性列为优先事项，并强调技术是关键的推动因素。大多数（89%）受访者还表示，他们的公司正在进行数字化。然而，只有三分之一的人认为他们正在获得他们认为会从数字化中获得的价值。
“作为一个管理团队，有几个问题要问，”麦肯锡高级合伙人兼管理合伙人Liz Hilton Segel说。“从技术角度来看，大多数人都知道他们要做什么。但是，与创造的价值有直接联系吗？而且，由于在许多情况下，我们看到没有，因此我们将其放在首位。
是什么让 CEO 们质疑 IT 的价值，这又如何导致 CIO 被排除在战略业务讨论之外？
让我们来看看挑战。
太多的首席信息官不懂商业。 许多首席信息官缺乏对业务的深入了解，尽管最近的历史表明，更精通业务的首席信息官有所增加。与我交谈过的首席信息官数量惊人，他们不定期审查公司的季度业绩或财务报表。他们来自技术、工程或科学背景，他们的舒适区在于技术本身，许多人对政治和关系建立有一种内在的厌恶，而政治和关系建立往往是攀登企业阶梯或参与商业战略所必需的。
IT 部门仍必须克服其后台声誉。 尽管数字化是每个CEO都关心的问题，但IT部门作为后台成本中心，几十年来仍然享有盛誉。这使得首席信息官很难将 IT 重新定位为能够产生收入和战略成果的战略性、前瞻性职能。
基础设施很难推销。 无论是构建电子商务网站、为公司定位人工智能系统，还是将内部业务流程数字化和自动化，这些进步所需的 IT 投资通常都在“幕后”资产中，例如存储、处理、软件和网络。首席信息官了解投资这些基础架构资产的必要性，但从非 IT 高管那里获得预算支持可能很难，因为仅仅投资更多存储或网络带来的业务成果和回报并不明显。
建立关系不是自然而然的。 大多数 CIO 来自 IT 或工程背景。他们通常不愿意与董事会成员和其他关键高管建立关系，而且他们在政治上也不是特别娴熟。
IT 是一个天然的“责备中心”。
我们大多数人都记得从学生时代开始抱怨自助餐厅的食物是多么容易！从某种意义上说，IT 就是这样。如果你走进一家银行或商店，在执行交易时遇到问题，店员或出纳员几乎总是告诉你，“对不起，这花了这么长时间。这是系统。
问题可能不是系统，而是系统受到指责。当 IT 不断受到指责时，很难将其提升为战略角色。
一、改变范式
剑桥词典将范式描述为“……或者一个非常清晰和典型的例子。当你改变一个范式时，你就会改变人们对某事的看法。进步的首席信息官正在这样做。他们正在将组织对 IT 的思考从后台角色转变为具有前瞻性的战略角色，其中 IT 被视为业务本身的关键要素。
在软件、半导体、生物医学和通信等以技术为中心的行业中，实现这种范式转变最容易实现，因为首席执行官和其他高层管理人员通常来自技术背景，不必被推销技术的重要性。
在金融、经纪和保险等其他行业，必须快速评估和管理全球风险，并依靠人工智能和分析来做出决策，技术也被提升为战略角色。
将技术从辅助角色转变为战略角色的公司有哪些共同特征？
- 技术被视为公司成功和市场竞争力不可或缺的因素。
- 技术投资的价值是理解的，当公司确定业务方向时，首席信息官应该从战略上权衡。
- 首席信息官了解业务。
二、将 IT 重新定义为一门战略学科
对于大多数 CIO 来说，将 IT 重新定义为一门战略学科，并让组织的其他成员认识到这一点并不是一蹴而就的过程。这也是CIO必须带头的领域。带头意味着通过改变 IT 实践来改变对 IT 的看法，以便 IT 更好地与业务保持一致。
那么，你是怎么做到的呢？
首先要彻底了解业务。 首席信息官应该了解公司的财务状况、市场和风险。他们应该与首席执行官、董事会和其他高管和利益相关者熟悉所有这些主题。当他们有机会时，他们应该展示 IT 如何为公司的底线盈利能力做出贡献，以便其他人也能看到这一点。
当 IT 部门与业务部门和经理保持一致时，关系发展就自然而然地发生了。 我拜访的许多首席信息官告诉我，打破僵局并开始与其他高管和经理建立稳固业务关系的一个好方法是与他们合作开展项目。这些首席信息官会定期拜访这些经理，了解业务目标和痛点，然后制定 IT 解决方案如何帮助经理（和业务）取得成功的战略。
作为这一过程的一部分，越来越多的 CIO 将业务分析师等 IT 人员直接安排到业务部门，或者他们将自己的 IT 分析师与用户部门的公民开发人员合作。这创造了部门间的合作，是与其他业务经理建立关系的自然入口。
将基础架构捆绑到业务计划中。 始终需要足够的基础设施来支持 IT 计划，但没有人愿意为基础设施付费。因此，应战略性地定位 IT 基础架构预算请求。这可以通过将基础设施改进捆绑到战略业务计划中来实现，例如在制造工厂中实施物联网和自动化，这需要零信任网络、更多工作站、自动化软件、安全性以及额外的处理、存储和带宽。
要有变革性。 在公司中实现变革可能会有风险，而且不适合胆小的人，但有些 CIO 已经了解他们公司的业务，并提出了从 IT 中发展出来的变革性解决方案。这些突破重塑了他们的公司。在其他情况下，首席信息官创建了自己的 IT 产品线，这些产品线成为其母公司的独立营利性子公司。这反过来又为这些首席信息官带来了CEO的机会。
与我交谈过的大多数首席信息官并不认为自己具有这种变革性，但他们仍然希望 IT 部门能够参与到企业战略的谈判桌上。为了实现这一目标，他们想方设法向企业展示 IT 的价值，与其他业务主管合作开展项目，并提供可衡量的价值和成果。
麦肯锡表示：“一流的首席信息官更进一步，技术推动了业务的发展。“这需要通过以技术为主导的商业模式、以产品和平台为中心的运营模式以及根深蒂固的战略资金分配以及技术职能部门成为数字用户旅程的管家来重新构想技术的作用。”
英文原文：
Align IT With the Business
Many CIOs list being able to align IT strategies with the overall strategic business plan as a key priority. But how can you do that?
Earlier this year, McKinsey produced a podcast on the Six Priorities of CEOs.
In the podcast, CEOs listed organizational resilience as a priority, and they highlighted technology as a key enabler. Most (89%) also said that digitalization was under way in their companies. Yet only one third felt that they were getting the value they thought they would get out of digitalization.
“There are a few questions to ask as a management team,” said Liz Hilton Segel, a senior partner and managing partner at McKinsey. “Most people know what they’re trying to get done from a technical point of view. But is there a direct link to the value created? And, since in many cases, we’re seeing that there isn’t, we put that first and foremost.”
What makes CEOs question the value of IT, and how does this contribute to CIOs getting left out of strategic business discussions?
Let’s take a look at the challenges.
Too many CIOs aren’t business-savvy. Many CIOs lack in-depth knowledge of the business, even though recent history shows an increase in more business-savvy CIOs. There are a surprising number of CIOs I speak with who don’t regularly review their companies’ quarterly results or financial statements. Coming from technology, engineering or science backgrounds, their comfort zone is in technology itself, and many have an inherent dislike of the politics and relationship-building that are often necessary to climb the corporate ladder, or to get involved in business strategy.
IT must still overcome its back-office reputation. Although digitalization is on every CEO’s mind, IT still has a decades-old reputation as a back-office cost center to contend with. This makes it difficult for CIOs to reposition IT as a strategic, forward-looking function that can produce revenue and strategic results.
Infrastructure is a hard sell. Whether it is building an e-commerce site, positioning the company for AI systems or digitalizing and automating internal business processes, the IT investments needed for these advancements are often in “behind-the-scenes” assets such as storage, processing, software and networks. The CIO understands the need to invest in these infrastructure assets, but gaining budget support from non-IT executives can be a hard sell because the business results and payoffs from just investing in more storage or networks isn’t immediately apparent.
Relationship building doesn’t come naturally. A majority of CIOs come from IT or engineering backgrounds. They often aren’t comfortable in relationship-building exercises with board members and other key executives, nor are they particularly politically adroit.
IT is a natural “blame center”.
Most of us remember from school days how easy it was to complain about the cafeteria food! In a sense, IT is like that. If you walk into a bank or a store and there’s a problem executing a transaction, the clerk or teller almost always tells you, “Sorry this is taking so long. It’s the system.”
The problem might not be the system, but the system gets the blame. When IT is constantly getting blame, it’s hard to elevate it to a strategic role.
1. Change the Paradigm
The Cambridge dictionary describes paradigm as “a model of … or a very clear and typical example of something.” When you shift a paradigm, you change the way that people think about something. Progressive CIOs are doing this. They’re shifting organizational thinking about IT from a back-office role into a forward-thinking, strategic role where IT is seen as a key element of the business itself.
Effecting this paradigm shift is most easily accomplished in technology-centric industries like software, semiconductors, biomedicine, and communications, since the CEO and other top managers typically have come from technology backgrounds and don’t have to be sold on how important technology is.
In other industries, such as financial, brokerage and insurance, that must rapidly assess and manage global risk, and depend upon AI and analytics to make decisions, technology is also being elevated to a strategic role.
What are the common characteristics of companies that change technology from a supporting to a strategic role?
- Technology is seen as an indispensable ingredient for company success and market competitiveness.
- The value of technology investments is understood, and the CIO is expected to weigh in strategically when the company sets its business direction.
- The CIO understands the business.
2. Redefining IT as a Strategic Discipline
For most CIOs, redefining IT as a strategic discipline and getting the rest of the organization to recognize this isn’t an overnight process. This is also an area where the CIO has to take the lead. Taking the lead means changing perceptions of IT by altering IT practices so IT better aligns with the business.
So, how do you do this?
Start by thoroughly understanding the business. CIOs should understand the company’s financials, markets, and risks. They should be conversant on all these topics with the CEO, the board and other executives and stakeholders. When they have the opportunity, they should demonstrate how IT is contributing to the bottom-line profitability of the company so that others can see this, too.
When IT aligns with business units and managers, relationship development comes naturally. Many of the CIOs I visit tell me that a good way to break the ice and begin building solid business relationships with other executives and managers is by teaming with them on projects. Those CIOs regularly visit with these managers to understand business goals and pain points, and then strategize on how IT solutions can help the managers (and the business) succeed.
As part of this process, more CIOs are placing IT personnel such as business analysts directly into business units, or they’re teaming their own IT analysts with citizen developers in user departments. This creates inter-departmental cooperation, and it is a natural onramp for relationship building with other business managers.
Bundle infrastructure into business initiatives. Adequate infrastructure is always needed to support IT initiatives, but nobody likes to pay for infrastructure. This is why IT infrastructure budget requests should be positioned strategically. This can be done by bundling infrastructure improvements into strategic business initiatives like implementing IoT and automation in manufacturing plants, which requires zero-trust networks, more workstations, automation software, security, and additional processing, storage, and bandwidth.
Be transformative. Being transformative in your company can be risky and isn’t for the faint of heart, but there are CIOs who have understood their companies’ businesses and have come up with transformative solutions that have grown out of IT. These breakthroughs have reinvented their companies. In other cases, CIOs have created their own IT product lines that became separate for-profit subsidiaries of their parent companies. This, in turn, has led to CEO opportunities for those CIOs.
Most CIOs I talk with do not see themselves being this transformational, but they still want IT to be at the corporate strategy table. To get there, they find ways to showcase the value of IT to the business, they collaborate on projects with other business executives, and they deliver measurable value and results.
“Best-in-class CIOs take this a step further, with technology driving the business,” said McKinsey. “That requires reimagining technology’s role through technology-led business models, a product- and platform-centered operating model with ingrained strategic funding allocation, and technology functions becoming the steward of digital user journeys.”
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