Why IT purchases should never be the driver of business change

Technology can do great things. It can land us on the moon, connect us to relatives in far-flung places, and let us access the office from anywhere in the world (you can decide for yourself whether this last example is a good one or not). Technology can also transform the very heart of a business to make it more efficient, agile and profitable.

Amazon’s unrelenting focus on technology investment, for example, has enabled it to become the world leader in multiple, seemingly entirely unconnected markets, from streaming media to enterprise cloud computing and even voice assistants. The Amazon of today is almost unrecognisable from the fledgling online bookshop it once was in the early noughties, thanks, largely, to its technological investment.

However, in contrast to Amazon, where every technology choice has been driven by a clear business decision, many organisations do not operate this way. A technology decision must come from a business need first and foremost. For example, the need to automate processes and save time and money, or to make processes simpler and less liable to delay or error, or, as in Amazon’s case, to capitalise on a growing new market.

This article was written exclusively for GovTech Leaders. Read the full article here.