Business Technology not Information Technology

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Time to be either controversial or helpful in identifying what is the real issue in the use of technology for business as we look ahead. It’s pretty clear too that from CEOs, to CIOs; from CTOs to CFOs; to say nothing of users and consumers, we are using a wider range of technologies than ever, and more particularly that this is largely due to the advent of a new ‘paradigm’ (please forgive me for the use of the word) with various aspects of the Web at the centre.

We were here some twenty years ago, and many of us built our careers on the last paradigm change around the introduction of Personal Computing and the whole shift in technology and working practice that this introduced. It was this shift in, well just about every aspect of computing and its use, which led to the term Information Technology, or IT, being introduced in the early nineties to cover this entirely different environment. The point of introducing the term was to separate the new technology environment built around PCs, Networks, and Client- Server architecture from the previous generation of computing technology.

There is a similar argument today that says using Web based technologies in the enterprise is sufficiently different both for business purpose and technologies applied that it too should have a different name to prevent confusion. Forrester Group, as far as I am aware, first proposed this back in 2006, and followed up with a detailed analysis in May 2007. Since then it has become more widely recognised and adopted.

The key definition is obviously that IT was PC Network based, and BT is Web and Internet based, but I want to go further than that and look at the architecture side. IT was clearly based on client-server and split the technology elements up to support a person using a PC in new more productive ways. This was linked to a business organisational shift towards matrix working and lots of change in how enterprises established their back office practices. The term Business Architecture is used to define how an organisation is organised in respect of responsibilities. Wikipedia provides the following:

“Business Architecture” is an architecture that structures the accountability over business activities prior to any further effort to structure individual aspects (processes, data, functions, organization, systems, applications, etc.). A Business Architecture arranges the accountabilities around the most important business activities (for instance production, distribution, marketing, etc.) and/or the economic activities (for instance manufacturing, assembly, transport, wholesale, etc.) into domains.

That works for IT, but what works for BT? Firstly what comes first the technology architecture as in the case of client-server leading to business architecture of ERP, or the Business innovating its working practice as in the case of the PC at initially a personal level? Right now I think we are at the personal level moving to the department level in much of the Web 2.0 based adoption, and we are just starting to grasp the enterprise level consequences with the MashUp playing the role of the spreadsheet.
A colleague has just written an excellent white paper on deploying MashUps at Enterprise level that demonstrates the value of this move clearly. But what is the real Business Architecture that is the value from Business Technology? Your thoughts are welcomed and I will be posting mine next week.

Posted by Andy Mulholland on July 21, 2008 | Digg this | Seed Newsvine

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I’ve been intending to post on Socio-Technical Systems for a little while now, and Andy’s recent post on Business Technology has provided the prefect timing. Since a post I made in February on how the IT industry might have inadvertently... [Read More]

Comments

# on July 24, 2008 1:53 PM, David Chassels said:

Business is about people who create all source information where fundamentals never change. Technology is about delivery. Just think of the new "horse" as the web. Both need to work together but are quite separate in their support requirements. Get it?

# on July 25, 2008 1:28 PM, andy mulholland said:

Works for me to see them as seperate in many senses but linked in terms of the overall need for business. Been doing some more homework on this topic and when back from my holidays in some ten days time will be posting more on the topic

# on July 25, 2008 1:31 PM, andy mulholland said:

# on August 13, 2008 5:49 AM, shaguf said:

As traditional views of IT get supplanted by an overarching business technology trend, companies are investing in gaining the benefits of the next generation of computing, where resources are maximized, integrated and used to deliver business results. Saltmarch Media's Business Technology Summit ww[DOT]btsummit[DOT]com) features a convergence of intelligence on the hottest technologies on India’s business technology radar -- the ones that are not only exhibiting attributes such as cost savings, flexibility, application re-use, and faster response times, but also the ones that are charting pronounced inflection points in their evolution.

The industry's premier business technology event, held in Mumbai and Bangalore Sept. 22-26, will host sessions by Peter Coffee of Salesforce.com, Dr. Alan-Pelz Sharp of CMS Watch, Dr. Chris Harding of The Open Group, Ismael Ghalimi of Intalio, Hans De Groot of SDL Tridion, Morris Panner of OpenAir, Dr. Robert Marcus of NCOIC.org, Ravi Gururaj of VMLogix. On tap at Business Technology Summit 2008 are deep dives in SOA & Web Services, SaaS, Virtualisation and ECM, and the Expo. See the program here: http://www.btsummit.com/summitSchedule.html.

The 2008 edition of Saltmarch Media’s Business Technology (BT) Summit, centered around the theme of Riding the Workhorse IT Hockey Stick, features a convergence of four co-located tracks that have been identified as the power team for Workhorse IT -- SOA & Web Services, SaaS/PaaS, Virtualisation, Enterprise Content Management (ECM) -- offering complimentary synergistic for a robust IT infrastructure that no IT decision-maker, manager, architect, or professional can afford to ignore in their quest for business technology success.

# on August 13, 2008 10:57 AM, andy mulholland said:

well I don't know whether to say 'no advertising' or to smile and say good use of the concept of finding the interested community for your message!!

May be this time its a smile, but please guys no adverts, good references that can help us connect and find information are always welcome, but make sure that the focus is clear.

thanks andy

# on February 7, 2009 6:19 PM, Vancouver computer support said:

Now business technology and information technology both are business but in different ways.

# on February 7, 2009 6:22 PM, Vancouver computer support said:

Now business technology and information technology both are business but in different ways.

# on February 8, 2009 9:52 AM, andy mulholland said:

I agree, after all there would be little justification for using either in an enterprise if there were no business benefit!

I really wanted to pinpoint the differences between the technologies that form the basis of each, and where each is most commonly likely to be used. ie a WiKi for the desktop support operations is certainly likely to be of value, and is certainly in IT, but its more likely that we will see a front office revolution in external activities from using the new technologies in new ways.

its hard to say if there is a 'line' between the two; i know of some companies where they have clearly split the activities, and others where they are managed in a common way. My point is we need to recognize the differences to make a decision on how we handle this issue.