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IT Savvy: What Top Executives Must Know to Go from Pain to Gain

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Based on its title IT Savvy, executives may look past this book as another IT advocacy book. You know the kind that says technology will fix everything. Don't make that mistake.

Weill and Ross have created a business book about IT with a clear and concise argument of the role, purpose and contribution IT makes to the enterprise. This is a book executives should read because it clearly states mostly in business terms how executives should think about, lead and fund IT.

Highly recommended for business executives, ignore the title and read the book. CIOs and IT executives should read the book as well and buy copies for their business peers. Corporate and IT strategists should read this book as it have several tools that will help them work together more effectively.

The book's principle term IT Savvy is defined as the ability to use IT to consistently elevate firm performance. It's a good workable definition, not so prescriptive as to lock out innovation, yet not so open as to mean anything to everybody. The book builds on this simple definition with a number of very powerful observations and statements that matter:

> You have to stop thinking about IT as a set of solutions and start thinking about integration and standardization. Because IT does integration and standardization well.

> IT Savvy firms have 20% higher margins than their competitors.

> You need an operating model before you can make sound investments in IT

> IT funding is important, as systems become the firm's legacy that influence, constrain or dictate how business processes are performed. IT funding decision are long term strategic decision that implement your operating model

IT Savvy is based on three main ideas with some commentary from the reviewer.

1- Fix what is broken about IT, which concentrates on having a clear vision on how IT will support business operations and a well-understood funding model. These are two things required for executives to be accountable for IT and its contribution to raising business performance. This is in sharp contrast to situations where IT is delegated and benignly neglected in the enterprise. Sound advice.

2- Build a digitized platform to standardize and automate the processes that are not going to change so you can concentrate on the elements that do change. This is counter-intuitive advice for people who have been told to use IT to chase innovation, but the platform idea is based on studying leading companies and what they do with IT. It may not be sexy, but the platform does drive significant margin, operational and strategic advantage.

3- Exploit the platform for growth by focusing on leading organization changes that drive value from the platform. This is sound advice that is often left out of business and IT books. Once you build a platform for scale, and then lead the company to drive scale across the platform to get benefits. You would not build a house you intended to live in and then not live in it, but many companies build a platform and then run away from it.

The book concludes with an assessment, based on their research that you can take to determine how IT Savvy your business is. The assessment is a very helpful tool for launching the conversation of how to raise business performance.

Strengths

The book is clearly written and very well supported with business based case studies of leading companies like UPS, Proctor & Gamble, Aetna, Seven-Eleven Japan, Pfizer, etc. The cases make for good business based reading and an understanding of what an IT Savvy business looks like.

The book is focused with clear language that makes for an efficient yet in depth read. This is the perfect book for executives who want to learn about raising performance, but do not have the time to study it in depth. There also a number of powerful tools, graphics and frameworks that let you apply the ideas.

The book is not limited to IT. In fact it features in depth discussions of business processes, shared services, management, measurement, operating models etc. Covering these topics in conjunction with IT shows that the authors are clearly concerned with business performance first, second and third.

Challenges

Its minor but readers need to recognize that when you talk about the value of anything, like IT, you tend to refer to the thing a lot. This book uses the word IT a lot and IT Savvy, which may give the reader the impression that it's an IT book. I would advise reading past that term and into what is changing in the business.

The book is short, small format, and only 182 pages. For some that is a real problem, they take brevity as a sign that the book is about marketing the idea than driving the point home. NOT THIS BOOK. The book if focused and I thank the authors for not wandering in the latter chapters just so they could write the traditional 300-page business book.

The book reprise some of the authors earlier works on enterprise architecture and IT governance. This is ok as many readers will not be familiar with this work and the pieces covered here fit well with the overall theme of IT Savvy and demonstrate the authors depth of knowledge.

Many of the main points of the book come at the end of paragraphs or chapters. This makes the book a little difficult to skim-read, something that executives often do. My advice is to take the time to read the words and look out for the nuggets of wisdom toward the end of the chapters. Given that it's a shorter book and the language is clear, I found the extra time to read more than paid off in the extra insight gained.

Overall, a good book, one that should become a foundation for understanding the role of technology in the enterprise.

As someone who has read all of the earlier books by these authors, I think this is the best one yet. The world is increasingly digital and IT is now essential to how we work, live and play. Success in business will only come to companies that master the management of IT. IT enables innovation in products, processes and business models, and the operating model is dependent on IT. Many business (non-IT) execs, struggle with what their role ought to be in managing this asset, typified by complexity and relentless change. This book, targeted at the senior business exec, focuses on a handful of key IT management processes that when well designed, implemented and executed will lead to what they term IT Savvy.

Immensely readable, the book explains the key concepts clearly, illustrates them with convincing examples from leading companies, and leaves you with an actionable agenda for raising the IT Savvy at your company. The ideas in the book are based on many years of research and are a durable set of management principles that when mastered will enable companies to successfully leverage IT.

Weill/Ross' books are easy on the eye. This sort of book understands how CEOs think about IT and convince them on the possible hidden values of IT that many organizations don't realize. This book is obviously not just another a pro-IT book or anti-CEO book. It talks about integration to create VALUE. It also talks about cutting IT expenses as an effective tactical solution to organisations that suffer from IT. It talks about changing the organisational behavior rather than sending blames randomly or particularly to CIO.

This book is a must have for CEOs/CIOs and if you have a lazy CEO, I recommend summarizing some of the ideas to him/her to become an IT savvy.

This useful book is clearly written and sharply focused; it stays right on message. As its subtitle indicates and its writing style reflects, executives are its target audience. Peter Weill and Jeanne W. Ross, researchers at the MIT's Sloan School of Management, provide the data leaders need to manage, fund and update their IT programs - information they gathered during field research at more than 1,000 companies. They sketch broad concepts, but don't shy away from a high level of abstraction. You may have to do some additional work before making decisions about realigning your IT structures, but this will position you to know what to consider. getAbstract recommends this book to every executive, since all top managers now must learn to thrive in an increasingly digital world and to understand information technology (IT) strategy. It will also assist IT specialists who must work with managers who are still building their strategic know-how for the digital age.

Managers face an increasingly competitive global world and must know some degree of IT (information technology) savvy to be successful. IT SAVVY teaches how to link IT to bottom-line results and comes form IT expects who argue that success in the digital economy will go to companies smart about using IT successfully. Fifteen years of field-tested research contributes to a fine guide for managers on how to link IT to success.

This is one book that manages to communicate very timely and tangible content. Most books in this arena are too focused on one facet of IT or way too general to be of any real value. IT Savvy was a blazing fast read that was easily absorbed and made me overlay the concepts against what I'm already doing in my organization. I hope no one else reads this book - except the members of my exec team...

Re-read this book and thoroughly enjoyed it. To realize the most value out of IT investments, define the operating model, identify core processes, and create a digitized foundation.

"IT Savvy" is a must-have book for every business leader seeking to gain competitive advantage through information technology, and for every Enterprise Architects charged with getting the most IT Value from IT investments.
Authors Peter Weill and Jeanne Ross deliver clear guidance to take your company from IT Challenged to IT Savvy. They distill into very readable form the methods and best practices from their prior two books: "Enterprise Architecture as Strategy" and "IT Governance".
Professors Weill and Ross demonstrate the importance of establishing a business operating model as the basis for IT investments. In the 7-Eleven Japan (SEJ) case study, they show how SEJ transformed IT from strategic liability to strategic asset.
With the business operating model in place, they explain why the IT Funding Model must be aligned, and how other successful companies accomplished this. In the BT case study, Weill & Ross show how the company's leadership fixed the IT Funding Model, created powerful outcome-oriented Business Cases, and achieved transparency into IT investments and results.
The authors then explain how to build the Digital Platform for business execution that enables, automates, and powers the business operating model. The Swiss Re case study shows how this company created its Digital Platform to manage global risk and enhance relationships with its global customers.
They then tackle the challenges of governing the IT Funding Model and individual investments as well as the Digital Platform and its IT estate. In the State Street case study, the authors show how this company employed their Chief Architecture Officer (CAO) and the Office Of Architecture to ensure architectural conformance.
Finally, the secrets to deriving and driving IT value from the Digital Platform are revealed.
If you want to know these secrets, you must buy "IT Savvy"!
__Joseph Starwood

Weill and Ross lay out how IT can be transformed from a strategic liability to a strategic asset. They explain the importance of defining the business operating model and the nature of IT support required. The authors provide four general operating model types. They create parallels between these types and different ways of realizing business value (three from Wiersema and Tracy's value disciplines---Operational Excellence, Customer Intimacy, Product Leadership, and adding a fourth for Disruptive Innovation/Strategic Agility). Their narrative puts much attention on how a company can progress through four stages of IT architectural maturity on the path to value in building a digitized platform. The authors allude to their previous fine work on "IT governance" and "IT infrastructure as strategy" to indicate ways executives can help coordinate decision making, drive benefit, and lead an IT Savvy firm.

I just finished reading: IT Savvy - What Top Executives Must Know to Go from Pain to Gain - by Peter Weill and Jeanne W. Ross. This book is about transforming IT from a Strategic Liability to a Strategic asset. It covers a wide array of topics ranging from defining your operating model, the funding model, driving value etc. to assist in building a true digitized platform. Regarding the operating model for example, the business needs to define what it expects from its IT department in terms of two axes: standardization and integration. This generate four distinct operating models: Diversification, Replication, Coordination and Replication. Each model poses its own challenges that require IT to address. Once the model is defined, IT will embark on a journey consisting of four stages: Localizing, Standardizing, Optimizing, and Reusing. Note however that the return on investment made in each stage will not be the same. Particularly as a company shifts into stages 3 and 4, companies will have to make significant investments which will only pay out on the longer term. A lot of companies struggle with stage 2, as it requires significant changes on the business side. One cannot hope to standardize IT systems if the underlying business processes diverge. A number of examples are given of companies that have made this successful transition, and how they managed to overcome the obstacles. Note that this journey is an on-going one which requires constant effort and refinement to ensure the company is always moving forward.

This book is a good read for business and IS folks alike, as it helps bridge the gap that exists between them. The criticism I have is around the way the book is written. It may have been better to write it as a collection of case studies, which would avoid the duplication in discussing the same example companies and how they employ each aspect discussed. Overall though, an easy to read informative book about IT execution and how it can be leveraged to build a truly leverage-able IT platform that would give its underlying company a competitive advantage.