When thinking about a digital startup in Wellington, widely regarded as the tech capital of New Zealand, the first image that usually comes to mind is one of a loft-like open space populated by casually dressed smart young things with faces illuminated by the screens of their MacBook Pros jammed along communal tables.
But in the world of Peter Sondergaard, Senior Vice President and Global Head of Research, “stereotypes are always dangerous.”
“What if I told you that you’ve probably got several digital startups in your own organisation?” quizzed Sondergaard, addressing decision-markers across New Zealand and the world.
“Right now, there are digital startups sitting inside your marketing department, in HR, in logistics and in sales. Leaders in those business units are driving their own digital innovation.
“They approach technology differently, trying new analytic tools, cloud solutions and technology services. And they’ve got a whole technology industry geared up to help them.”
Every business unit is a technology startup
Alluding to Gartner’s widely held belief that “every business unit is a technology startup”, Sondergaard believes technology providers are “actively driving this change.”
According to Sondergaard, millions of salespeople, hundreds of thousands of resellers and channel partners are selling directly into business units, not just to CIOs or IT.
“That’s half of the technology industry’s sales capacity focused on also selling directly into the business unit,” he explains.
“They know that IT budgets are only going to grow 3% on average in 2015, and they are looking for new sources of revenue within other parts of the business.
“And you know what? They are finding eager buyers in marketing, sales, HR, logistics and product leaders.”
Enter bimodal IT
AS a result of the change, Sondergaard believes Kiwi CIOs need to respond to this “cataclysmic shift.”
Read more: Gartner to CIOs: Flip IT leadership from legacy first to digital first
“And if CIOs can’t beat them,” he explains, “they can at least learn a thing or two from them. The answer is bimodal IT.”
The IT organisation, Sondergaard points out, can’t turn into a digital startup overnight and, besides, there’s a raft of business-critical responsibilities that it simply can’t (and absolutely should not) divest.
“This is the fundamental challenge for CIOs,” he claims, “but also the solution. Bimodal IT is a concept that helps CIOs address the intrinsic tension that exists between what IT needs to provide and what the organisation needs to grow.”
Sondergaard says mode one is all-things traditional, emphasising safety and accuracy, in other words, “what a traditional IT organisation does best.”
Mode two however is nonsequential, emphasizing agility and speed, like a digital startup.
“Put them together and what you have is bimodal IT,” he adds. “One organisation operating at two speeds, but coordinating, communicating, leveraging shared knowledge and focused on one shared, not competing, goal; improving performance.”
Sounds simple, but easier said than done? “Absolutely,” Sondergaard adds.