Remember the days of “IT Doesn’t Matter”? Nicolas Carr’s infamous Harvard Business Review article from 2003 captured the frustrating reality for many CIOs: business leaders just weren’t interested. Back then, the prevailing thought was to outsource IT like the company cars and the canteen. But a seismic shift is happening – finally, business leaders are taking their seats at the IT table.
Thank you GenAI
The culprit behind this change? It’s not a sudden surge of tech enthusiasm among CEOs. No, it’s the emergence of generative AI (genAI) and its potential transformative potential. Suddenly, it isn’t about a boring bunch of technology anymore. Business leaders understand they must envision the possibilities – from chatbots that personalize customer experiences to AI-powered algorithms that design new molecules and optimize supply chains. And as the technology is beyond comprehension for most mere mortals (inside and outside IT), the discussion now finally focuses on (business) outcomes.
From a Technology to an Industry Discussion
The fastest way to turn a technology discussion into a business conversation is by focusing on the critical challenges the companies‘ industry is facing. Instead of technical topics – such as LLM’s, containers, serverless and other ‘native’ approaches – dominating the conversation, CEOs and CIOs are now discussing the challenges and opportunities unique to their market and the role that the composable capabilities of industry cloud platforms can play in addressing these.
A New Way of Business-IT Alignment
This outcome-driven approach marks a turning point. The elusive “business-IT alignment” so desperately pursued by CIOs of the past is finally within reach. Business leaders are no longer content with simply approving IT budgets. They’re actively engaged. sometimes even taking over, embarking on decade long strategic partnerships with tech providers without much involvement of their IT colleagues. It’s a pendulum swing and pendulums tend not to stop at the center.
The Beginning of a new Era
The impact of this change on the IT and cloud market should not be underestimated. Shifts like this offer opportunities for new market leaders to emerge, new platforms and approaches to become pivotal and new ecosystems to arise.
So, more to follow, to track and to analyze, right here.
Disclaimer: All comments and opinions are my own and do not represent the views of Gartner Inc. or its management.
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