The Software Architect Elevator

Chapter 37. You Can’t Fake IT

To Be Digital on the Outside, You First Need to Be Digital on the Inside

Who can spot the dinosaur programmer?

Rapid feedback cycles (Chapter 36) help digital companies understand customer demand and improve the product or service offered. Naturally, this feedback loop works best when the product or service has direct exposure to the end customer or consumer. Corporate IT, in contrast, is relatively far removed from the end customer because it supplies IT services to the business, which in turn is in contact with the customer. Does this imply that corporate IT shouldn’t be the focal point for digital transformation as it’s too far removed from digital customers? Many digital transformation initiatives that are driven “from the top” appear to support this notion: they have special teams engage with customers in focus groups before handing down the specs to IT for implementation.

Laying the Foundation

But just like you cannot build a fancy new house on an old, fragile foundation, you cannot be digital on the outside without transforming the IT engine room: IT must deliver those capabilities to the business that are needed to become Agile and to compete in the digital marketplace. If it takes eight weeks to procure a virtual server based on an email request, the business cannot scale up with demand, unless it stockpiles a huge number of idling servers, ...