This series of research examines the interplay of business technology with business strategy, governance, budgeting, organization, risk management, business processes, partnerships and the marketplace - and offers the theory, real-world examples and specific advice for executives on running, and winning, the race.

The Convergence of Business and Technology

Getting BTM on the Executive Agenda

What is BTM?

The BTM Standard provides a set of guiding principles that create a seamless management approach that begins with board- and CEO-level issues and connects all the way through technology investment and implementation. The Standard identifies 17 essential capabilities grouped into four functional areas: Governance & Organization, Managing Technology Investments, Strategy & Planning, and Strategic Enterprise Architecture.

Strategic Positions

Building lean or agile organizations requires substantial investment and carries strategic risks. It is important to realize that not all firms need to be lean or agile and that it is possible to exhibit both leanness and agility.

Making the Right Investments

A business-driven technology strategy articulates the business capabilities required for success. This clear understanding of business requirements dictates the technology plans and appropriate business technology investments to execute the firm’s business strategy. Aligning business technology investments with business strategy is done by focusing on the type of value that the firm seeks to create.

Governance: Who’s in Charge?

At a time when business technology has the potential to shape competitive advantage and superior performance, boards and top management teams must remain vigilant. It is vital that boards appreciate the material risks inherent to the creation and use of business technology and understand the firm’s risk-mitigation strategy. The strategic importance of information and the nature of current business technologies have raised the stakes regarding the privacy, security, and confidentiality of information.

Is Your Organization Ready?

Three trends influence organizing for BTM: the need for rapid and innovative use of technology, supply-side pressure to deliver reliable and low-cost services, and new compliance requirements. Changing business conditions cause alterations to business models and processes. Changing conditions in technology demand also impact how the business should be organized and managed. It is critical that business and technology stay connected and coordinated. Therefore, BTM capabilities such as Organization Design and Change Management become essential.

Realizing Critical BTM Capabilities

Buy, Hold or Sell?

Most companies have not successfully used a portfolio approach to manage business and technology together. Portfolio and Program Management (PPM) is the enterprise-wide focus on defining, gathering, categorizing, analyzing, and monitoring information on corporate ssets and activity. PM provides top managers a entralized and balanced view of he payoffs of various business echnology projects that lays out the benefits and risks of each.

The Age of Process

Being agile requires sense-and response capabilities that are shaped by designing and managing business processes and technology enablers together. Processes in most companies are unmanaged, invisible, and unmeasured, and, consequently, are executed haphazardly and inconsistently. This results in delays, errors, low quality, and high overhead costs. The Service-Oriented Business Execution Model (SOBEM) is a way of organizing the elements, models, and architecture components that help to design processes for agility.

Considering Risk

Significant changes in business technology have created a compelling need to expand the focus of risk management from the micro project view to a broader enterprise perspective. Risks are classified into three broad categories: systems, sourcing, and strategy, based on where they originate. Some risks are predominantly intra-enterprise in nature, such as systems and strategy, whereas others, notably sourcing, reflect inter-organizational challenges.

Measuring Success

The objective of business technology must be clearly understood before the legitimacy of its business value can be established. Metrics for business technology benefits must keep up with the changing nature of the business and the technology. Before technology alignment can be effective, the business strategy must be converted into specific activities.

Peering Into the Future