Strategy

I asked the following question on LinkedIn earlier this week and received some very insightful responses:

What are the top challenges in IT organization’s today?

In reading the various magazines, blogs and websites out there (CIO.com, etc) on the subject, I’ve come to the conclusion that there are many many issues facing IT groups today. What are the top challenges that most IT organizations are facing today? What is keeping CIO’s up at night in today’s environment?

If you haven’t tried out LinkedIn yet, you should…there are some great folks over there as well as some excellent information available in the Questions / Answers Section.

I received some excellent responses…and most were on target with my own thoughts.  Prior to asking the question, I thought that the issues that were in the front of many IT leaders were:

• Find and Keeping Talent
• Business / IT Alignment
• IT Strategy
• Outsourcing

The responses received from other LinkedIn users seem to back up my original thoughts.  There were other issues listed (System integration, Merger and Acquisition Due Diligence, etc) that were very interesting to see as well.

It’s interesting to get the feedback from people in the field on what they see as huge issues.  An interesting point to note, none of the responses seemed to be from CIO’s of an organization…all were from people who seem to be at a more tactical level than strategic level.

Why is this important?  To me, it says that there are a lot of people in IT with the business savvy to see the challenges that is facing them and their organization.  Why then are these same IT folks being told that they aren’t “business savvy” and need to start speaking “like business people“?  It sounds to me like there are plenty of business savvy people in IT but very few people on the ‘business’ side of things that have really reached out to these folks to get their opinions.

Any additional challenges for IT groups that have been overlooked (either in my post or in the responses on LinkedIn)?

One thing that I’ve heard often is that a project manager role is a good thing for your career and will help your ascent up the ladder to more responsibility.

I’m wondering how often this actually occurs.  I’ve met a lot of Project Managers who have been PM’s for years and have had very little chance to be promoted.  Now, some of these people are perfectly happy being PM’s and don’t want to do anything else…but others are struggling with moving into higher responsibility positions.

I’ve got a good friend who’s looking to make the transition into a leadership role (she’s hoping for a Director or VP spot) and she asked for my thoughts on what she needs to do to make herself more appealing for a more senior role.

I couldn’t really answer the question…surprising I know! :)  She’s a great PM but an even better leader.  She understands business and technology and is a perfect candidate for a a senior leadership role but she’s found that companies are passing her over for advancement.  I took a look at her resume…everything looked great.    She’s personable and interviews well.  She has peer reviews and recommendations from current and previous managers…everything is the way it should…except she can’t land a job in a more senior role.

I’ve mentioned to her that she might want to start looking elsewhere because it seems as if her managers don’t want to promote her because she is skilled at what she does and they don’t want to lose a good PM.  I’ve seen this happen other places…people aren’t given a chance to move into a management role because they are ‘too good at what they do’.   Of course, that’s absolutely the wrong thing to say and do…if you have good people and they have the right skill sets to be a manager, you should move them into that role.

Does anyone have any ideas for those PM’s who can’t seem to get promoted?

The topic of Information Technology Strategy is one that is near and dear to my heart.  In fact, I’ve harped on this subject a few times (a few posts for your reading please can be found here, here and here and you can find all posts related to the topic with this search).

Why is this topic something I think and write about often?   Because it’s one of the most important topics in business today.  I doubt there are many people who would argue that point.

Every corporate leader that I speak with agrees with me on the topic of IT Strategy….but few can really describe their IT strategy and even fewer can show a plan for implementing that strategy.  This strategic plan doesn’t have to be a huge formal document but it must address a few key questions:

1. Where is the organization going to be in the next 6, 12,18 and 24 months?  What are the short and long term goals?
2. How can IT help the organization achieve the goals described in #1 above?
3. What are your criteria for project selection and what project portfolio management techniques will you use?
4. Is your current IT organization capable of implementing your strategy?
5. How can you bring value to your clients AND your IT staff?

There are other questions that should be addressed by an IT strategy but the above will help get any organization started.

Like most other posts like this, I have an example that might help clarify the above points.

On a visit with a potential client, I was being briefed on the organization’s “big project” that they wanted my assistance with.  On the surface it seemed simple and straightforward…and it seemed like a great idea for the organization. After about an hour of discussion, I started to get the sense that this organization hadn’t clearly thought this new project through.

The new platform had the ability to consolidate the functions from three other platforms that they had already been using…but they weren’t planning on replacing those platforms. They were going to add this new platform in order to take advantage of a single piece of functionality while still running the other three platforms.

I asked them a few questions (e.g., why they were doing this, why they weren’t thinking about replacing their existing platforms, etc)…their response was “well….we already have those systems in place and we just need this one piece in place and we’ll be set”.

After a few more rounds of questions, I finally got the real answer from the group as to why they have 3 platforms that do the same thing and were going to put in another one: They had no IT Strategy.  The CIO had talked about creating a strategic plan for technology but it had been mostly talk.  Because of the lack of an IT strategy, the organization lacked any direction and any guidelines for what IT projects to take on.

We all know how this turns out.  No IT strategy, no IT project selection guidelines and no IT project measurement systems will always lead organizations to flounder around and grasp at whatever projects pop up.  They implement the ’sexy’ projects (the latest technology, etc) without any real governance on project selection.   Organizations end up with three platforms that do the same thing.

I told my potential client that I couldn’t help them with the new implementation. I turned the project down primarily because it was a bigger project than I could take on at that time but also because I didn’t believe in the project’s feasibility and usefulness.

The CIO and I had lunch a few months later to touch base and I was surprised to hear that he had stopped the project that they had spoken to me about.  He had mentioned that he was starting to see that the organization was spinning its wheels and not accomplishing much but he couldn’t understand why.  I mentioned my thoughts to him and I saw his eyes widen a bit as he realized why his team wasn’t accomplishing anything…they had no roadmap to help direct them.

He asked if I’d be interested in helping him draft an IT strategy (I said yes of course) and we setup some time to discuss the topic more in-depth. I spent the next three months helping the CIO craft an IT strategy that addressed the questions listed above.

The IT strategy that we developed has subsequently helped the organization deliver more services for less costs due to a properly thought out IT strategy.  Gone are the days of supporting multiple platforms…the IT staff has one platform and are now focused on creating innovative applications rather than integrating multiple platforms.  The IT staff has also been able to streamline operations and become more flexible. No more waiting 6 months to get a quote to an internal client for a new project….projects are quoted the same day and usually delivered within 3 months.

In addition to the ability to deliver more quickly and at lower costs, there is an additional benefit that come from thinking about question #5. When developing your IT strategy, you should always consider how to create value for your clients….but don’t overlook how you can bring value to your employees as well.   This is a key issue for any IT strategy…how can you make your organization a place where your IT staff will want to work?

Has your organization taken a good hard look at its IT Strategy?  Does your IT group know where they should be focusing their attention?  If not, you really should stop and think about developing a strategy for at least the next few years.  Without a map, you may not end up where you want to be.

If you’re in business today (especially in the Information Technology space), you’ve no doubt heard of the need to ‘align IT to the business’ or something similar…you may have even heard me talk about it (see here and here). The majority of my time in my consulting practice revolves around the idea of alignment and that’s also what I’ve devoted this blog to (although I sometimes ramble on about other topics). I live and breath in the space of alignment of IT and business…..and I’m always perplexed by the lack of understanding of what it truly means to align the technology of an organization with the business goals and practices of an organization.

What does alignment really mean? It’s simple (not really…but…): it means that you look at every aspect of your business to ensure that you are taking on the IT projects that will bring you the most benefit. These projects must fit into your strategic goals and must deliver value to your organization. It’s not really that simple..there are always political agendas, pet projects and personal quirks as well as other issues that creep into the equation. which complicates things.  But…for the purpose of a definition, it’ll do.

So…what does any of this have to with Information Technology Leadership? Read on and see.

With proper leadership in IT groups, and proper leadership within the organization, the act of alignment can be made much simpler. Let me ’splain.

As part of the push to align business and IT, there’s been a lot of talk of bringing ‘business savvy’ people into IT groups. To do this, organizations are sending their IT staff to business classes and MBA programs and hiring technology savvy business professionals to run IT groups. This approach is a good one because it gets your IT staff closer to the business and helps IT understand the terminology and business ’speak’ as the rest of the organization.  This approach is flawed though as it lacks the two-way communication that is required to truly align business and IT.

Training your IT staff on the business lexicon is all well and good…but what about training your non-IT staff on what the IT group does and what it can do for the organization? The current approach is one-way. It turns ‘techies’ into business people….but what about putting the onus of responsibility on both sides? Make the non-IT staff truly understand what IT is, what its capabilities are, and what they can do for the organization and you might open up the communication channels even further.

Mike Schaffner had a great quote in a recent blog post (read it here):

I once had a CEO tell me that one of the things she wanted in IT was people that “talk like us” meaning they understand business issues and can explain things in business terms

It’s great that the CEO understands that she needed to have IT people that understood business principles and the business lexicon. Wouldn’t it be just as important for that CEO and the rest of the organization to understand basic IT principles and what technology can do for them? More importantly, doesn’t it make sense to take some time to understand the people that work in IT?

Rather than making “them” (IT) talk like “us” (business people), why aren’t we looking for more of a two-way communication medium? Rather than forcing IT professionals to change, why not look at the organization as a whole and change the way it operates. Integrate the Information Technology professional into the organization so they can be involved from the start on any new projects and can quickly provide input on the best way forward.

So…you might still be asking “what does this have to do with Information Technology Leadership”. Well…this is what should be at the forefront of every IT leader in the world. Scratch that. It should be at the forefront of every leader in the business world.

Before you make IT personnel ’speak business’, why not take the time to understand what drives them? Understand why they do what they do. Most times you’ll find that IT Professionals like to solve problems using technology….which is exactly what organizations need in abundance these days. Stop forcing ‘them’ to act and speak like ‘us’ and start working together to understand what IT can do for the organization and what the organization can do with IT.

In order to “lead IT”, organizations need to look for leaders on both the IT side and business side who can bridge the gap between the two worlds and help fold IT into every aspect of the business. Bring IT into the strategic planning sessions…heck….let your IT staff take a crack at leading your strategic planning sessions. You might be surprised to find that you’ve got some very savvy folks in IT today who haven’t been given an opportunity to show their true value.

If you truly want to align IT with business, you must first lead change within the organization.  Lead the organization into a new reality and help everyone understand that IT is more than a bunch of ‘techies’…the IT group can be one of your most important assets into today’s competitive environment.

Organizations need to ensure that the proper leadership is in place within both IT and the rest of the business.  These leaders need to understand that IT and IT personnel can be a competitive advantage.  Organizations need to pull IT into the organization and make it an everyday part of business life rather than a necessary evil. To truly align IT with the business, leaders to lead the change that makes people say “I’ve got a meeting with IT tomorrow and I’m excited about what they can do for me” rather than “I’ve got a meeting with IT tomorrow and I’m not looking forward to it.”

I just finished reading The Strategic Project Leader: Mastering Service-Based Project Leadership by Jack Ferraro….not a bad book.

In section two of his book, Mr. Ferraro writes:

“In project management, leadership is desperately needed; leadership that is adaptable, perceptive, timely, meaningful, authentic, and unselfish.”

This one sentence sums up the core of The Strategic Project Leader’s message: Project leaders, not project processes, are the future for project management. As the first section carefully lays out, the codification and standardization of project management knowledge has created a commoditized service that can be bought and sold like any other product. However, project managers can resist the force of commoditization by adding personal value to their organizations through leadership.

Ferraro defines a new role for the project manager seeking to be the spearhead of change – the service-based project leader. As the book points out, this role of ‘Project Leader’ is an area of untapped potential in project management. This kind of leadership requires a project manager to provide service not only to a sponsor but to all the project’s stakeholders. By truly serving the needs of organizations and individuals, project leaders find themselves doing meaningful work, a factor that is linked to personal growth and great job satisfaction. Due to the highly personal and individual nature of leadership, it cannot be codified and standardized into a ‘methodology.’

The first section of the book is devoted to this idea of leadership in project management and provides guidance as to how to step up into a leadership role. However, Ferraro also introduces several critical topics not usually found in project management books. He discusses the importance of establishing trust-based relationships with clients, and putting the needs of the client first, ideas that are central to high-level project leadership.

The second section of the book provides more concrete information in the form of a ‘leadership competency framework’ that is comprised of five ‘core competencies’. This competency framework is presented in the form of a pyramid:

• Project & Program Management Knowledge, Skill & Experience
• Subject Matter Expertise
• Trust-based Relationships
• Consultative Leadership
• Courage

While knowledge of project management processes is necessary as the base of this pyramid, project leaders must move beyond this to become true consultative leaders.

The third section helps the reader create practical self-development plans – a step-by-step guide to improving leadership skills. The final section, written by Roberta Hill, provides a detailed overview of a variety of assessment methods.

Smoothly written and easy to read, The Strategic Project Leader is an indispensable guide to anyone looking to be a leader among project managers.

Interesting study released by McKinsey has just been released titled “How companies respond to competitors: A McKinsey Global Survey.”

The study, which is surprisingly concise, has some interesting information, but as all things McKinsey, there is a sales pitch involved.  The main ‘abstract’ of this report says:

Management theory suggests that companies facing serious competitive threats should extensively analyze how to fight back. Actual managers, however, say they are satisfied with the results of a less active approach, according to a McKinsey survey. Companies that understand how their competitors really react may be able to gain an edge.

The results of this research suggests that:

On the whole, as companies determine how to respond to a competitor’s moves, they generally assess three or fewer options and don’t look forward more than two years. About half don’t examine more than one round of countermoves by any competitor. A significant number rely on intuition to determine a response. And companies most frequently respond with whatever counteraction is most obvious in the moment—answering a price cut, for example, with a cut of their own, which often doesn’t hit the market until at least one or two sales cycles after the competitor’s move.

As I mentioned, the report has some good info, but there is an underlying ’sales pitch’ that says the following:

• most companies don’t have a clue what they are doing
• Hire McKinsey and we’ll perform ongoing exhaustive analysis for you and help you make better decisions.

Now…personally, I think McKinsey has some good folks and they offer some excellent services, but I think this particular research report does more harm than good.  Why?

It makes it very obvious that organizations are clueless and that in order to make the ‘right’ decision, an organization should hire McKinsey so they can make those decisions for you.

What I’d like to see is another report from McKinsey that outlines what value their decision making process on competitive moves brings to an organization.  Can they guarantee better results than can be had by assessing ‘three or four options’ and/or using intuition?  Perhaps…but would those results make more economic sense? If i have to pay them a million bucks for them to give me two more options to choose from, does that really help me?   If the option generates multiple millions of dollars in savings and/revenue, yes…but if not, then perhaps no.

I’d recommend reading the article regardless of what the size of your organization.  If you take anything away from it, have it be this:

When thinking about your competition, take the straightforward route and follow your instinct.  Create options for how you can out-maneuver your competitors…and when you think you’ve thought through the options, take a step back and think again.  Try another angle…see if you can come up with other options.  At the end of the day, your intuition has to lead you through whatever decision you make…if it feels right, then it probably is.

When did common sense get removed from the corporate technology selection process?

For those that don’t know what it is, technology selection is the process by which an organization decides which technology platform (software, hardware, etc) will be used for a particular application and/or piece of the business. For example, selecting an organization’s Content Management platform (e.g., Sitecore, Interwoven, Vignette, etc).

Using a common sense approach toward selecting technology seems reasonable. To take this approach, a person doesn’t need to be an expert…just someone that can think through things and apply common sense to the selection process.

How would one approach selecting technology without using common sense? Glad you asked…and I guarantee you that you’ve seen this before.

1. Hear about the ‘latest technology’ and/or hear a buzzword.
2. Think “yes…we need that….that will make everything better!”
3. Talk to a few vendors.
4. See a demo.
5. Buy the platform
6. Throw it over the wall to the technology group to implement.
7. Go look for your next buzzword.

This approach happens more often than you would think. There are so many things wrong with this approach. Common sense has been thrown out the window.

I’ve personally seen this approach taken in many organizations when the leadership team decides that ‘X Technology’ is going to be their savior (note to people…technology will rarely save you) and they ignore the “common sense voice” in their head. Very rarely do these types of approaches work.

To compare, let’s look at the approach that I follow when assisting organizations in selecting a new platform…it isn’t necessarily the ‘right’ way…but it has worked for me…and I think it’s an extremely simple and common sense approach:

1. Take a look at the organization’s strategy for the future
2. Look at the technology strategic plan (if one exists)
3. Build a business case (if not already created)
4. Ensure that the organization’s strategy is aligned with the technology strategy (many times it doesn’t)
5. Work closely with the information technology/systems group to understand their current capabilities
6. Find an answer to the question of “What are you trying to accomplish with this technology?”
7. Perform some risk analysis (e.g., affect of the new technology on current processes, etc.)
8. Take a vendor agnostic stance
9. Look at all available options (including current systems) to find the ideal solution.
10. Develop a comparison of solutions with strategic direction
11. Choose a platform
12. etc.

I could keep going…but you get the point. Common sense stuff, right? Basically, you look at where you are trying to go and choose the technology that will help you get there. How hard is that? Apparently….very difficult for most organizations.

How can we get common sense back into the technology selection process? If you have some ideas…I’d love to hear them.

Diamond Consultants released the results of their Digital IQ Survey recently (download the full survey here) that provides some very interesting (and surprising?) insights into Business and IT Alignment.

Before we dive into the results, let’s set the stage with some basic info about the survey:

• 456 executives surveyed with about half the respondents being CIO, CTO or other senior IT executives.
• 90% of companies surveyed had annual revenues over $1billion.
• Broad range of industries - finance, manufacturing, health care, insurance, high tech, government, etc.

Interesting tidbits from the survey:

• 82% of respondents believe that IT is a strategic part of their business
• More than 80% of respondents believe that IT is creating significant competitive pressure in the services industry
• less than 10% of respondents say IT projects meet user expectations

Surprising tidbits from the survey:

• 33% of the respondents said that the CIO was significantly involved in strategic planning
• 19% “totally agree” that their strategic planning process is effective while 46% “somewhat agree”

Let’s look at one particular topic: IT’s role in creating strategic advantage.

More than 80% of survey respondents believe that IT is a strategic asset for their business and can create competitive advantage….but only 33% of the respondents said that the CIO and/or other senior IT executives were significantly involved.

Does that make any sense? Why would you believe that your information technology can create an advantage but not ask for the involvement of the the CIO and/or other senior IT execs’ involvement?

I think the reasoning is probably pretty simple…there’s been a lot of talk about IT & Business Alignment and many senior execs understand the importance of this alignment but don’t know understand how to execute to truly align business and IT.

The only way to truly align IT and Business is to do the following:

• Involve IT leadership and organization in the business planning process.
• Rethink IT projects. There really isn’t “IT projects” any longer….there are only business projects that have a strategic affect on the organization.
• Empower the IT organization. Stop holding the reigns tightly and let your technology people innovate.
• Engage the IT organization. Want to know a secret? Salary isn’t the only thing people want…they want to feel needed, they want to learn, they want to be engaged. Find ways to keep your IT human capital engaged.
• Reward the IT organization. Are you rewarding your IT personnel for the work that they do? In addition to salary, bonus and other rewards, are you giving your IT organization the credit it deserves?
• Grow the IT organization. You can’t create a strategic advantage with a skeleton IT crew augmented by contractors. You have to grow your IT organization so that you have full access to the entire library of knowledge needed to compete….I don’t think you can do that with more contractors than full-time staff.

These are just a few of my thoughts…I’d love to hear some feedback and/or your thoughts.

Technorati Tags: Strategy, Information Technology, IT, technology, alignment

Read an interesting article on GigaOm yesterday titled “Google�s Infrastructure is its Strategic Advantage” (go read it if you haven’t).

This post, and Google’s strategy, is a great example of using Resource Diversity and Immobility to build an advantage in your market. If you’ll recall from my previous posts (here, here and especially here), using the concept of diversity and immobility allows an organization to create a competitive advantage…and that’s exactly what Google has done with its infrastructure (and to some degree, with its people).

According to Om:

To better understand Google and its business model, one needs to break it down into three data inputs.

• Relevancy of results.
• Speed of search.
• Cost of executing a search query.

And later in his article, Om says:

In other words, the company has to make sure that the speed of its search is really, really fast. Any random search on Google these days takes between 0.12 to 0.06 seconds. Now that is really, really fast. Google does this by indexing the Internet quite well. The magic is in delivering the search results from this index at lightening speed, and that requires an infrastructure…

So…how did Google create their competitive advantage in the search space?

They created Resource diversity and Immobility by building their own infrastucture and are rumored to be buying unused fiber. According to Om:

With the exception of optical systems, Google has built or is building the gear. It has been rumored to be a big buyer of dark fiber to connect its data centers, which helps explain why the company spent nearly $3.8 billion over the past seven quarters on capital expenditures.

By building and owning their own infrastructure, they’ve created both resource diversity and resource immobility by creating a huge barrier to entry that will be almost impossible for other competitors to match.

In addition to using infrastructure to build immobility & diversity, Google has also used these concepts with their people. Google has had the ability to go out and hire the best and brightest to develop their infrastructure and software products.

Google has created an environment that makes it extremely difficult to compete…they’ve built an infrastructure that is almost impossible to replicate and they’ve hired the best and brightest.

This is Resource Immobility and Resource Diversity at its best.

Technorati Tags: Strategy, Business, IT, competitive advantage, technology, resource immobility, resource diversity

This is an excerpt of a paper I’ve just completed titled “Information Technology Human Capital as Competitive Advantage”. I’ve provided a brief intro plus the conclusion here. This white paper was the inspiration for the the topics discussed in my previous posts titled “Resource Diversity & Immobility Simplified“, “Competitive Advantage and the Resource Based View of the Firm“, and “Competitive Advantage - The Human Capital approach”

To read the entire article, download the PDF titled “Information Technology Human Capital as Competitive Advantage“.

This paper provides a brief review of the literature within the space of information technology and business alignment, and more specifically, the areas of creating competitive advantage by managing human capital to create a sustainable advantage in the marketplace.

In today’s ever-changing world, organizations must learn to evolve, adapt and continuously rethink their strategic objectives and operational abilities. As part of this strategic planning process, organizations have historically looked at two aspects; strategy (how they will go to market, what they will sell, etc) and execution (how to implement the strategy, how to do business, etc). The seminal research on strategy and competitive advantage (Andrews, 1986; Porter, 1998a, 1998b) historically overlooked two of the most important aspects of any strategy; technology and people.

In the 1990’s, researchers and practitioners began looking at merging technology into the strategic planning process and how the alignment of business strategy with information technology can help to create a competitive advantage (Henderson & Venkatraman, 1993). These researchers had brought technology into the strategic planning process, and in some respects they considered the human resources of the organization, but they still overlooked the people as being a valuable piece of capital that could be used to create competitive advantage.

This oversight is most visible within the information technology (IT) groups. Even though many organizations and researches stressed the need for IT and business alignment, they still seemed to overlook the human capital aspect while aligning IT and business strategy.

These oversights have led to the current environment of overworked, disengaged and misaligned IT personnel and IT groups. The “turnover culture” that has arisen within the IT industry provides some evidence of the unhappiness and/or discontent that most IT personnel have (Moore & Burke, 2002).

Recent research has provided a path to the solution of the problem of creating sustainable alignment between IT and business strategy. These solutions involve not only aligning IT and strategy but also implementing human capital management practices to ensure that people are considered as much of a resource for creating competitive advantage as any other asset within the organization (Hu & Huang, 2006; Robert, Agarwal, & Ferratt, 2000).

This paper provides a review of existing literature related to the strategic alignment of business and information technology and human capital management practices. The first section, titled “Alignment of IT with Business Strategy” provides a review of existing business and IT alignment research. The second section, titled “Human Capital Management, IT & Business Alignment” provides an overview of existing research into human capital management practices within the IT space.

The third section, titled “Human Capital as Competitive Advantage” outlines the use human capital as a means to gain competitive advantage in the marketplace. Lastly, the fourth and final section titled “Future Research and Conclusions,” outlines areas that may provide avenues of further research and concludes the paper.

To read the entire paper, download the PDF titled “Information Technology Human Capital as Competitive Advantage“.

Further Research and Conclusion

Further research into this area can follow Ferratt et al.’s (2005) study of the effects of human resource management on information technology (IT) employee turnover (Ferratt et al., 2005) and Joseph et al.’s (2007) suggestion that adopting a human capital management approach to managing IS employees may increase employee engagement and reduce turnover and job dissatisfaction (Joseph et al., 2007).

Another area of further research that could be considered is Huang and Hu’s (2007) approach of combining human capital management along with a business-IT alignment model by using a balanced scorecard system to implement and measure alignment. This balanced scorecard approach seems reasonable but very little quantitative data exists to measure the success or failure of this approach (Huang & Hu, 2007). Further research into the use of balanced scorecards to align IT, business and human capital management practices could be accomplished by collecting quantitative data in multiple organizations to provide more insight into the success and/or failure of this approach.

Yet another avenue for further research is within the area of validation of alignment of IT system requirements with business strategy (Bleistein, Cox, & Verner, 2005). Bleisten et al.’s research provides a framework for measuring and ensuring that all IT system requirements are in alignment with business goals. This research is interesting but as yet unproven.

Lastly, research into furthering the application of the resource based view of firms and the creation of resource diversity and resource immobility within organizations seems to be a fairly wide open area. In many organizations today, outsourcing work has become the norm as has hiring contractors instead of full-time employees. Many research questions arise from this. A few examples are:

• How can an organization create resource diversity and/or resource immobility when they are drawing from the same talent pool of outsourcers and independent contractors as their competitors? This is an idea that is very interesting and something worth pursuing.
• How can an organization segregate IT projects so that non-strategic projects (is there such as thing?) are managed with non-strategic assets and resources while strategic IT projects are managed with strategic assets and resources.

There is still considerable research to be done to better understand how to create sustainable advantage using technology and people. The areas of information systems, strategic human resource management and organizational behavior can provide models to help create sustainable advantage and value for organizations.

In order to truly create sustainable competitive advantage, an organization must have the right strategy, technology and people in place. In today’s world, it isn’t enough to have only one or two of these; an organization must obtain and maintain the mix of the right strategy, the right technology and the right people.