Informatica Enterprise Data Management

Nicholas Carr’s 2003 article “IT Doesn’t Matter” in the Harvard Business Review is still getting attention five years later. I for one won’t let it drop because the article is based on an incorrect premise and misrepresents the IT challenges that business executives should be aware of.Carr’s main premise is that information technology is a commodity and as a result “the core functions of IT have become available and affordable to all.” In other words, if everyone can afford low-cost hardware and if quality software is available off-the-shelf for just about any business need, then it is no longer a competitive differentiator.

A Carr commentary on the article (see http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/3520.html#1) reinforces the point as follows: “What makes a resource truly strategic—what gives it the capacity to be the basis for a sustained competitive advantage—is not ubiquity but scarcity. You only gain an edge over rivals by having or doing something that they can't have or do. By now, the core functions of IT—data storage, data processing, and data transport—have become available and affordable to all.”

Nicholas Carr could not possibly be an IT practitioner since if he was, he would know that computer components cannot simply be “plugged in” to a business process solution. It’s not like plugging a DVD player into a home entertainment system and it’s not building a LEGO castle. These metaphors are sometimes useful to make a point, but they dramatically over-simplify the problem.

Integration is hard. IT complexity has been growing exponentially for the past 15-20 years – and integrating it all in support of changing business processes, dynamic organizational restructuring, mergers, and technology evolution is very difficult. So while the individual technology components might be commodities, integrating the business data and processes seamlessly and efficiently is hard to do.

You don’t need to just take my word for it. Here are a few more references to support the importance of integration:

• Gartner (2006), “By 2010 more than 85 percent of very large and more than 60 percent of large enterprises will have one or more integration competency centers (.7 probability).”

• CIO Magazine (2007), State of the CIO Survey, The #1 answer to the question “What are your top five technology priorities for the year ahead?” was “Integrating/enhancing existing systems and processes”. 68% of CIO’s and CTO’s had this on their top 5 list.

• The same State of the CIO Survey asked “What is the primary focus of your SOA effort so far?” The top answer was Internal Integration (43%).

• Computerworld (2007), a January 14th article presented 8 hot technologies that IT professionals should focus on in 2008 in the interests of their careers. One of the 8 was Integration.

Why has Gartner been predicting the rise of Integration Competency Centers since they started writing about it in 2002? Why are CIOs putting integration at the top of their priority list? Why is Computerworld listing integration as a “hot technology skill? The answer is the same in all cases – because it’s hard to do. Not impossible – just hard. And those that do a better job at integrating their business data to obtain a 360 degree view of the business, or integrate their channels so that customers see a seamless experience across all of them, or integrate their business partner systems through business process automation – will have a distinct advantage over their competition.

Nicholas Carr is right about one thing. Sustained competitive advantage comes from scarcity not ubiquity. Good integrators are scarce – at least in 2008. Maybe in 10 years integration will be a more formal discipline with good industry training and an educational system that feeds it. But in the meantime, those organizations that can put a special focus on integration and are better at it than the average, will have a distinct head start.

All large organizations have an opportunity to differentiate themselves and get a leg up on their competition by establishing an Integration Competency Center, staffing it with good people, training them properly, and providing the tools they need to excel. The payback from an ICC can be huge and is capable of raising the bar, and bottom line performance, for the entire organization.