Technical Problems Can Become Business Problems

Post date: Oct 29, 2012 4:24:53 PM

We often hear the Business problems must drive the adoption and development of technology, but what happens once technology become so embedded in the business that technology problems are the business problem?

We are beginning to see exactly this happen with things such as Internet e-Commerce and IT security. If these technology problems are not cared for and do not drive the "business" decision the business will no longer operate and become a liability to the business. So in these cases how is the technology suppling the business? If the your business is selling books over the Internet (Amazon) your technical infrastructure to provide web access is the business.

Lets think about some examples from other industries that illistrate some problems with the IT industries "business" must drive technology problem. If a car makers production line does not always put the right engine into cars, sometime it puts in a lawn mower engine sometimes a diesel engine. This work clearly be a business problem.

Another good recent example, is the quality control and good manufacturing process at pharmaceutical companies. The possible contamination of an batch of of flu vaccine lack to large scale shortages. Again a failure of a technical process leading to a failure of business processes.

There are many industries that are very IT driven such as banking and telecommunications that still think the "business" must drive IT decisions. This leads to situations where the IT teams see a looming IT driven problem that must be corrected but is not having a "business" impact today so is not getting funded. We are trying to bridge this gap with Risk Management processes, but often these are drive by business risks not technology risks.

These ideas are driven by trying to move a technology, 802.1X port security management, forward in a environment where it is just address technology risks and will not move the "business" forward. The implementation of port management is necessary to control the devices in the network and represents the next step of "good" IT "manufacturing". it needs to be done not to solve a business problem but to keep the manufacturing floor running.