Agility: Competing and Winning in a Tech-Savvy Marketplace

Chapter 4. TECHNOLOGY AS THE COMPETITIVE EDGE

In the previous chapters we have seen the impact IT capabilities are having on business results and how we have developed models and guidance to assess and work through the infrastructure optimization process. Next we take those insights and combine them with the research findings from profiling data of thousands of customers and drilling deep into actual customer experiences.

One lesson some leaders have already painfully experienced and other organizations could benefit from: Don't think that "cool technologies" provide you with a competitive edge if you are part of the majority of adopters. Moving after the others have already experimented, to avoid their mistakes often robs an organization of the opportunity to learn and adapt to the change early enough. If your organization is not part of the cutting edge, you are simply keeping up with the Joneses. The lessons are clear: Organizations that are identifying new capabilities and—as important—identifying how to use them for their business will outperform their competition tomorrow.

WHY BENCHMARKING?

Are there days when you would rather scrap your "organically grown" IT infrastructure than own, maintain, support, and manage it? It's okay to admit it. You are not alone. Many feel that the hardware, software, licenses, patches, and support headaches put land mines and speed traps all over their IT infrastructure plans. What would you do if you could throw it all out and start over with a ...