Connect with us

Global Banking and Finance Review is an online platform offering news, analysis, and opinion on the latest trends, developments, and innovations in the banking and finance industry worldwide. The platform covers a diverse range of topics, including banking, insurance, investment, wealth management, fintech, and regulatory issues. The website publishes news, press releases, opinion and advertorials on various financial organizations, products and services which are commissioned from various Companies, Organizations, PR agencies, Bloggers etc. These commissioned articles are commercial in nature. This is not to be considered as financial advice and should be considered only for information purposes. It does not reflect the views or opinion of our website and is not to be considered an endorsement or a recommendation. We cannot guarantee the accuracy or applicability of any information provided with respect to your individual or personal circumstances. Please seek Professional advice from a qualified professional before making any financial decisions. We link to various third-party websites, affiliate sales networks, and to our advertising partners websites. When you view or click on certain links available on our articles, our partners may compensate us for displaying the content to you or make a purchase or fill a form. This will not incur any additional charges to you. To make things simpler for you to identity or distinguish advertised or sponsored articles or links, you may consider all articles or links hosted on our site as a commercial article placement. We will not be responsible for any loss you may suffer as a result of any omission or inaccuracy on the website. .

Technology

INSANITY IS DOING THE SAME THING OVER AND OVER AND EXPECTING A DIFFERENT RESULT

Zahid Jiwa

Written by Zahid Jiwa, VP UK&I, OutSystems

From the laptop to the laws of gravity, British ingenuity has shaped our world and we have a strong history of championing new ideas, innovations and inventions.  Britain’s capacity to excel in research and development has continued to be at the heart of our economic growth and today we are still one of the world’s leading innovators. As we slowly start to climb out of recession, growth prospects remain at the mercy of continued budget constraints combined with a growing IT skills shortage. Thinking about our legacy as a powerhouse of discovery and invention, it is clear to me that the only way that we can get out of today’s economic malaise is by continuing to invest in sustainable innovation.  However where IT is concerned, I think that’s easier said than done.

But before we talk about innovation, I think I need to stress that innovation doesn’t need to be ‘big bang’ or about radical change or an amazing new invention. Innovation is simply a new way of doing something.  Whether a new feature, a new service or a new process, innovation is often about incremental progress, which enables the business to work more effectively and efficiently.

Zahid Jiwa

Zahid Jiwa

According to CIO Magazine, business process improvements and increasing IT capacity to drive innovation is top of the list of most frequently cited IT management priorities.  However, according to IT Wire.com, over 25% of all CIOs also list innovation and technological change as one of the biggest challenges facing them in 2013.

So why does IT struggle to innovate?  Or to put it another way, why does the business perceive that IT can’t innovate?  I believe there are two mitigating factors.  The first is that according to Gartner, at least 80 of the IT budget is still spent on Keeping The Lights On (KTLO). So if the total spend on enterprise-wide IT is likely to be $2.68 trillion (as cited in a recent New York Times article), and 80% of this spend is allocated to what is essentially maintenance, you get the picture in terms of how much KTLO costs.   The second factor impacting IT’s ability to innovate is around the accumulation of new service or change requests made by business units, which puts a massive strain on IT resource. This creates an inevitable backlog which can result in a failure to deliver. IT departments are then often seen to be incompetent, slow, and by default unable to support innovation. The real failure here however is actually a lack of budget and resource, not incompetence or an inability to innovate.

The reality is that any business faced with the critical need for new applications and an IT department unable to respond will find a way to solve the problem by either building their own application, renting cloud based solutions that don’t need IT’s involvement, or hiring an IT consultancy to help them build the application.  However this doesn’t address the problem. In fact, for most companies it makes the problem worse.  Technology debt grows and backlogs get bigger. Unable to react, IT inevitably gets left behind and becomes an unsustainable business model. IT departments are then rendered as ineffective and irrelevant, relegated to being a cost centre unable to help the company innovate.

Organisations continue to walk down this path and expect to arrive somewhere different.   This has to change; IT has the ability to innovate in so many ways, if only given the chance.

Global Banking & Finance Review

 

Why waste money on news and opinions when you can access them for free?

Take advantage of our newsletter subscription and stay informed on the go!


By submitting this form, you are consenting to receive marketing emails from: Global Banking & Finance Review │ Banking │ Finance │ Technology. You can revoke your consent to receive emails at any time by using the SafeUnsubscribe® link, found at the bottom of every email. Emails are serviced by Constant Contact

Recent Post