WHITE PAPER IT TRANSFORMATION
8
Learning
to Compete:
IT’s Next
Transformation
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I. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
For many years, management experts have been talking about how CIOs must shift their thinking to a
competitive stance. CIOs need to deliver rapid IT capabilities for market advantage to the business, instead
of resorting to the tired “build it and they will come” philosophy. Businesspeople realize there are many
attractive IT solutions beyond what internal IT can offer.
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The increasing willingness of business users to turn to the marketplace is creating a fundamental change
for IT departments. IT might think it has a monopoly, but it doesn’t. Now, many IT leaders believe they
need to compete for business because stakeholders have alternatives. Ultimately, this could be a positive
development for CIOs: businesspeople are thinking much more about IT, and there is strong potential for
the IT function to play an increasingly important role. CIOs and their teams have to figure out quickly how
to look, act and deliver more like external service providers competing for the same internal customers.