How corporate IT can come up to speed in delivering more functionality

Let’s start with a simple premise: Corporate IT is not up to speed in delivering new business functionality. Argue it if you want, but most business executives would agree.

Where is the evidence? Just listen to the IT people themselves. They are in break-fix mode. They are spending on support and security, not functionality. Typically 80 percent of their budgets go to maintaining current
systems. For them, Gartner offers a dark prognosis, saying: “As caretakers of inflexible infrastructure, the IT department is doomed.”

Software-as-a-service is booming because any non-core competency that can escape the grip of the corporate IT department, will escape, as IT fails to respond to needs of the business line managers. A corporate business unit or small enterprise can run many processes online using subscription services. Even open source is a form of “self-help” for avoiding the politics and bureaucracy of corporate IT, sometimes seeded from within IT itself.