What To Make of These Stories

These stories are a lot to digest all at once. But even if the particulars of one anecdote vs another still seem a bit overwhelming, there are a couple of key conclusions that can be made.

First, the business/technology disconnect isn't just the stuff of analyst reports and magazine articles. In one form or another, people grapple with the disconnect in every industry from old-line manufacturing to bleeding-edge biotech, and when disconnects crop up between business, process, and technology, it causes serious problems that impact the bottom line. To make this point, I've looked to acknowledged industry leaders ”people whose opinions and experiences carry real weight. So when they approach the business technology disconnect soberly and seriously, then you should as well.

Second, and more important, a common undercurrent runs beneath each of these scenarios: companies that employ technology in alignment with sound business objectives succeed, while enterprises whose IT projects have fallen out of line with business objectives fail. This is an important lesson to learn for both business executives and IT leaders: without a dedicated approach to coordinate their efforts, it's impossible to make sure that IT projects will work with ”rather than against ”the business.