by Neal McWhorter

Today, most organizations find that their existing IT investment is both essential to the organization and a major impediment to the organization’s ability to respond to change. The IT cost structure has pushed many organizations to look at outsourcing as a way of controlling the spiraling costs associated with IT organizations. Yet organizations more and more are selling products and services that have an IT service aspect that makes the IT systems an extension of the business product. The existing model of custom-crafted solutions and its supporting requirements-based approach are at the core of the problem. Moving toward a platform-centric approach can allow business design to emerge as a standalone competitive discipline while allowing strategic technology investments to be evaluated using a model similar to those used for industrial facilities. This approach is central to organizations moving beyond their use of technology as a tool for cost reduction and releasing the capability to use technology as a tool for competitive advantage. By separating out business design from technical design, organizations can enhance their ability to compete through business innovation as well as enabling their IT partners to focus on providing the breakthrough technology capabilities upon which new technology-based products and services are based.