IT leaders should be preparing for a new wave of innovation

Starting from the position that IT leaders need to turn fear of recession into an opportunity to do more with what they have, Ken McGee, vice president and Gartner fellow, advises them to focus on innovation, globalisation, connection, socialising, industrialising and advancing. In terms of innovation, McGee says he’s alluding to “IT innovation of the third kind,” meaning neither IT for IT’s sake, or for business’ sake, but a hybrid – that which takes place when IT practitioners design innovative IT solutions to meet business needs that were identified and initiated by IT people. His belief is that it’s not just about infrastructure modernisation, such as faster Internet speeds, cheaper storage, or improved flexibility through virtualisation. “While innovation itself is the first imperative, focusing on the value of IT to your organisation over the coming years will require attention to five more imperatives,” he suggests. Thereafter, the messages are the familiar ones of globalisation and the rest – apart from a few. When Gartner says ‘connect’, for example, it means revisiting the lost productivity hidden in the form of “electronic pollution with non-stop automated interruptions”. Gartner advises manufacturers to drive for ‘invisible mobility’ in order to attain real business value. “The network is starting to become intelligent: mobile devices know where people are, as well as when they have their next meeting, and how to read them. A CRM system and the Internet might shed some light as to a client’s satisfaction level,” says McGee. . Similarly with ‘socialise, the organisation says that intends to stimulate thought and action around the power of IT in terms of people, not just organisations as a whole – meaning unprecedented potential for ‘Mass collaboration’. That, says McGee, requires a new mindset in order to tap successfully into the power of communities.