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Unilever Trains IT staff to Business Roles
Quote; ‘Global Manufacturer Unilever is training its IT Services departments to play a more important role in the business’ so says an article by UK Computer Weekly. It carries on to state there are four key points to the article;
- Unilever’s IT Staff training programme focuses on soft skills
- IT professionals to engage in strategic conversations with business leaders
- Involvement of IT in deciding business strategy a result of IT Outsourcing
- 3000 IT employees across Europe have already entered the programme
Wow! At last a serious sign of recognition that the role of ‘technology’ in a business is crucial, intimately tied to the whole operation of a business, that demands and expectations are changing and most of all that IT as we have known it is only part of the picture. How did I arrive at the last comment? Easy, at least in the context of this article, as it was the outsourcing of the traditional IT operations that has laid the way to bring IT staff into this new role and relationship with the business.
However to do this Unilever had to combine training from three different companies to get the coverage of the topics it wanted, and now plans to ask the British Computer Society, BCS, to accredit its programme under its well regarded Information Systems Examination Board. This is the same board that master minded the introduction of the ‘European Computer Driving License’ as a basic test of computer literacy that non IT employers could use to establish the skills level of new staff who would be expected to operate a PC as some part of their work.
Add these two different approaches together plus throw in some other good stuff from some of the business schools, take a look at Carnegie Mellon University Tepper Business Management School offering under e-Commerce as an example.
It seems as if suddenly there are courses for all the roles involved in making a modern business successful through the use of a wide range of technology tools, as well as just the traditional cost managed business process automation of IT.
I coined a term for this new environment back around the time of the first great Internet hype bubble; Techno-Business. Defined as an enterprise where the technology and the business were synonymous in the business model, i.e. the Business could only exist because (IT) technology allowed its business model to exist. Seems now to be obvious, but back then it wasn’t, anyway imagine my delight when in 2007 there was even a successful event under this name in the USA.
By tagging this post as ‘techno-business’ it will be interesting to see how many times search engines pick it up! I shall watch with interest!!
Posted by Andy Mulholland on June 4, 2008 | 
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Comments
# on June 19, 2008 2:05 PM, Chakrawarthy Kondapalli said:
It is interesting to note that Unilever is "getting thier IT to learn Business". I guess this journey has made its begining long ago, when Unilever IT has decided to outsource everything other than:
- Business Partnering
- Architecture
- Vendor management
by the nature of thier role, Architecture and Vendor management teams are experts and small in number.
So, the only way, an IT staff member can develop the career growth in the company is by "Partnering with Businses" effectively. so, getting into the shoes of "business" is a matter of survival for them.
I would be really surprised if other corporations do not follow the suite.
- CK
# on June 26, 2008 2:32 PM, Krishna Prakash said:
This is an interesting trend. This will help IT as well as business to use the technology effieciently and effectively.
# on June 27, 2008 7:12 AM, andy mulholland said:
Hi Prakash
since writing this i have had several people mention different organisations thinking or acting this way this way. Also seen several references to calling the new wave of technologies that help a business do business with others and create value 'business technology' to differentiate it from the existing'information technology'generation which is about automating internal processes to reduce costs.
# on July 1, 2008 8:35 AM, Krishna Prakash said:
The organizations should not just look at technology as a way to automate internal processess or reducing costs. They should also look at developing innovative products or services using technology. This will also act as differentiator in the market. I think that's the place for a techno-business role.
In today's competing market, reducing costs alone will not increase profit margin. The organizations focussed innovative products and services (even in tough times) have earned higher profits than those focussed with only reducing costs.
# on July 1, 2008 10:31 AM, andy mulholland said:
Hi Krishna
I agree with you but the IT dept generally is struggling with this as it does not have the mandate generally to propose external business change only to deliver internal business cost reductions.
there are plenty of comments on the future role of the CIO with this in mind and to me this is the real challenge that i think Unilever are showing how they are addressing.