A few weeks ago, I met with a leading COO who was concerned about the costs of technologies across their range of business portfolios.
This is a common challenge - one that I've encountered many times in my career.
IT costs what?
As regular readers of this blog know, I often distinguish between IT costs (which are necessary for doing business) and digital costs, which are instrumental in generating revenue within a business.
In addition to these two factors, it's suggested that within a portfolio of business (or projects in a construction company), you determine what is required for these entities to do business.
The following framework is helpful.
Emerging – minimal IT costs and what Digital investments are scaled for specific used cases.
Maturing - This entity is profitable but doesn’t require a full enterprise IT service. Generally, there are some moderate IT costs as items are provided on a need basis. Any Digital investment is to be assessed on how it will further enhance doing business and possibly be a differentiator.
Established - Apply the strategy triangle (within my video) of foundations, simplicity, and innovation. Seek to keep foundational costs as low as possible, strive for simplicity across the business portfolios, and make informed discretionary decisions on where to experiment and explore innovation.
So how best do you go about assessing businesses and actions?
Within a workshop facilitated by somebody who understands IT, Digital, People and Business, read more about these here.
What about AI?
The emergence of AI means it'll also be utilised within IT and Digital strategies; IT is likely to benefit from automation, and AI within the business context offers differentiation opportunities for services or products.
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