The Next Leap in Productivity: What Top Managers Really Need to Know about Information Technology

FOREWORD

Don't Get Too Comfortable with the Idea that IT is Just a Commodity

By Gary Beach

Publisher Emeritus of CIO Magazine

How much should top management really care about information technology (IT)? That's the question Adam bluntly poses in this feisty and compelling book. Most of the chief executive officers (CEOs) I've met, and lots of chief information officers (CIOs), too, say they really care only about business results. They've grown comfortable saying stuff like, "IT is just a utility. It's a fact of life, like air conditioning and running water."

There was a time when I would have agreed wholeheartedly. I would have joined the chorus singing, "IT is a commodity, just like electricity." But I'm less certain now. And I get uneasy when I hear people telling me over and over that nothing counts except "results."

Here's why it makes me itch when people talk about how little they care about IT and how much they care about results: You can't achieve the results you want without IT.

Sure, there are parts of IT that have been commoditized. But there are broad, sweeping swathes of IT that still represent purely creative and incredibly valuable intellectual capital that's been captured and painstakingly translated into software code.

There are plenty of companies out there competing on the basis of their IT superiority, or at the very least on the basis of their IT competency. That's a fact.

So I think the simple answer to Adam's question is this: Top management should care ...