The IT and Business Gap

Today the topic came up again during a session with other analysts; the gap between IT and Business is widening as structure-free communication and collaboration software are becoming more accessible. Individuals are empowered and do not complain; individuals rarely need IT to build business applications as they are being replaced and poorly supported by communication-based informal processes. IT is focusing on the infrastructure and system support and finds itself in a more secure position by not being exposed to business application requests. IT can depend on brands and platforms with very little risk. This mutual comfort level creates a loss of knowledge capitalization and slows the vital on-going process improvement.

The time for business leaders and forward thinking technologists to shake the ivory tower (IT) being re-built has come again! (As it was the case in the late 80s and early 90s.) We can observe that some are taking this gap very seriously and involve a sort-of-middle-ware between IT and Business leaders; the expert in business process innovation and collaboration.