The Right Mind Set for Managing IT

Article by Bensaou and Earl Typically complaints about IT by company executive cite these problems

• IT investments are unrelated to business strategy.
• Payoff from IT investments is inadequate.
• There's too much "technology for technology's sake."
• Relations between IT users and IT specialists are poor.
• System designers do not consider users' preferences and work habits.

Earl and Bensaou Compare US and Japanese Mindsets towards IT

• 2. Framing - US sees it as a separate function requiring large investment to align it to Business Strategy.
• 3. Japanese see it as more deeply embedded in the organization - part of operations rather than adjunct to it - Strategic Instinct
• 4. US focuses on investments and projects and systems. Japan focuses on appropriate technology and training
• 5 Us Investment in IT is based upon payback Japanese see it in terms of Continuous Improvement.

Consequently, Japanese companies' expenditures on IT are half that of Western companies.

How Japanese and Western Managers Frame IT Management
Issue	Western Thinking	Japanese Thinking
How do we decide what IT to use?	Alignment -Try and align IT with Business Strategy	Intent - Have operational goals drive investments
How do we assess payback of IT investments?	Value for money - Capital budgeting	Based on operational performance
How does Business Process Improvement fit it with IT?	Assume IT provides the smartest solutions	Identify the appropriate goal and select a solution to achieve it
How should IT users and IT specialist communicate?	We train business-savvy CIO's	Integration by rotating managers through the IT function, co-locating specialists and users
How can we design systems that improve organizational performance?	Systems design - design elaborate solutions that users adapt to	Human Design- design the system to make use of the tacit and explicit knowledge