IT will no longer just support businesses but will become the driving force behind business change and innovation. As social, mobile, analytics and cloud technologies become more prevalent, IT will play a central role in growing customer value and transforming business models. This disruption will see many current market leaders challenged by more agile competitors who leverage new digital technologies. Businesses must optimize their service delivery to remain competitive in this changing landscape.

1. FROM NOW ON IT WILL NOT SUPPORT THE BUSINESS - IT WILL BE THE BUSINESS
CREATED BY: DAVID COTGREAVE
Digital technology has already changed the business
service delivery landscape.
The thing that we call IT is evolving, you’ve probably felt
it in your business. When school kids look back in history
class at the era we’re about to navigate, they will reflect
upon it on a par with the industrial revolution or the
renaissance. Although, I think, its global impact will be
greater.
What’s about to happen? Well, it’s happening already.
Consider how business IT has evolved.
At first, IT supported your business. In other words, you
needed a purchasing, transport logistics or stock control system - you asked your IT team to source
options and recommend solutions based on your brief.
Then, IT aligned with your business strategy. IT, increasingly in tune with your mission, began to
anticipate your needs and future requirements.
So far, so supportive.
In this next phase, ‘IT’ will BE the business.
Whether you call it SMAC, Third Platform or Nexus of Forces (I love Gartner's theatrical language),
what we now call IT is about to become the driver of business change rather than just the facilitator
of it.
That's exciting and scary too - the best roller coasters always are - so strap yourself in!
Customer value will increasingly be used to measure IT success, above and beyond traditional
operational metrics or project success. Therefore, the business fundamentals of IT from here on is to
grow end user and customer value. Innovation will be key – as one of my CIO friends puts it – ‘the
two Fs’ efficiency and effectiveness will be at the heart of IT service innovation. To that end, if your
IT outfit hasn't yet evolved beyond the role of a ‘keeping the lights on’ maintainer of legacy systems -
it must.
As a business, your customer service “brochure” will grow exponentially when your IT department
functions in this way – the potential is limitless. IT’s stock within the business will grow as a result.
Social, mobility, big data analytics and cloud are the tools of this revolution – so now is the time to
measure how well you are leveraging each of them. Taking the third platform paradigm, preferred
by IDC, allows you foresight into just how disruptive this shift is going to be. Visualise the impact of
the first two platforms.

2. The ‘first platform’ was the mainframe computer system, the ‘second platform’ was the client/server
system. Both were very influential and disruptive, both gave adopters a real competitive edge but as
many firms survived without a 'big iron', you could argue the ‘second platform’ was probably more
of a game changer.
The client/server platform, which gave rise to things like network printers and email really mixed
things up - you ask anyone who remembers communicating by fax or having a dot matrix printer
tethered to their desktop! AND that's the thing, you can look back at the introduction of mainframe
computing and the client/server model and you can reflect on which aspects of which businesses
were most greatly changed.
When we look back at which aspects of which businesses got changed by this ‘third platform’ era the
conclusion will be - EVERYTHING!
Business leaders must prepare for a change of this magnitude. Think how, in the late 70s and 80s,
Japanese car makers started to increase their global market share - often outcompeting long
established US manufacturers by innovating on delivery and efficiency. The change that IT is about
to bring to the business landscape will see this type of scenario played out time and again.
Newcomers will overthrow market leaders because they are more agile and more innovative.
Virtual and physical worlds, Gartner predicts, will become more blurred - more of what was once
physical will become digitised and available 'as a Service'. What this means is small agile operators
can climb their industry's market share league table quickly at the expense of traditional 'big players'
by adopting new business delivery solutions or innovating them themselves.
Indeed, by 2018, IDC forecasts that in most industries one-third of the top 20 market leaders will
encounter significant disruption from either new competitors or existing ones that have
"reinvented" themselves.
What each of these competitors will have in common is that they innovate or use new services and
business delivery models optimised for SMAC (social, mobile, analytics and cloud) – Gartner’s Nexus
of Forces.
So, what should you do?
1 – Carry out (or have carried out by independent eyes) a Service Delivery Assessment. This can help
you optimise your Delivery and Service Management to meet your business demands now and in the
future.
2 – Carry out (or have carried out by independent eyes) a gap analysis focusing on your delivery of
the social, mobility, analytics and cloud ‘nexus of forces’. Concentrate on customer value more than
more traditional measures.
3 – Get excited! The potential is huge. Advanced Machine Learning, 3D printing, BIG data analytics,
the next part of IT’s evolution is revolutionary – and you get to be part of it! What’s not to love
about that?!

3. I think Ovum’s 2015 ‘ITSM Trends to Watch’ framed it nicely, “IT must be positioned as a business
unit that adds value. A focus on enabling business objectives must be at the forefront of IT’s
thinking. The management of multiple service providers in delivering business outcomes will become
an increasingly important capability.”
In 2015 it was a trend to watch, in 2016, this will be an IT imperative.
Further details of how Stoneseed’s services can help, can be found on our website:
www.stoneseed.co.uk
Sources:
http://www.stoneseed.co.uk/services/service-delivery-management-services/service-delivery-assessment
http://community.hpe.com/t5/IT-Service-Management/Transforming-the-Business-of-IT-Optimizing-the-Customer/ba-
p/6822262#.VpPPyM_nnIW
http://www.cio.com/article/2377568/cloud-computing/as-idc-sees-it-tech-s-third-platform-disrupts-everyone.html
http://www.gartner.com/technology/research/nexus-of-forces/
http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3143521