Why do Business and IT clash so frequently?

Making the most of IT in business development seems quite evident and everyone agrees on the opportunities. Still, it is often difficult to keep the pace required. Everything influences everything else and decision making is tough. The decisions will have an impact far into the future. It feels like it would be a big risk to make the decisions on what to do and what not..

One extreme case is a company that made a significant change in their positioning and business strategy. Previously, the company could be classified as a process industry company but after some business transactions it could be better described as a knowledge company selling consultative services. After this transition the old legacy systems did not support the business any more.

What is important and what isn't?

In a growing company there are always more needs related to IT development than there are resources to take care of them. The IT department is fully occupied delivering support and seeing to urgent needs. Taking the time to plan and implement for the long-term is not possible. All the requirements are important from someone’s viewpoint, but there is not enough time to link the needs to a development roadmap and communicate the roadmap back to the business. In the worst case, business units start acquiring their own systems without coordination by the IT department. This will, of course, have a negative impact on maintainability and data flow.

Business problem

Often the prioritization of needs is left for the IT department to do. They should make decisions on what is most important and in which order the development should be done with the available resources. This is backwards. IT alone cannot make the decision on what the business priorities should be.

Another case would be a company that has grown with a 50-100% rate for a few years. There are development needs all over the company. All processes scream for better business applications and integrations to manage the growth. How can they decide whose needs are the most urgent ones?

A final issue is that IT departments should be resourced with the right competences. Supporting the business organization requires more soft skills than hard IT skills. Detailed technical expertise can be brought in from service providers, but the dialogue between business and IT requires internal drivers.