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Capability on Demand
Expanding Business Capability through Agile IT
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By "capability on demand" (COD) we mean the ability to rapidly satisfy a need or deliver some kind of service or outcome. It's akin to having the answer ready when the question is asked. Examples of COD in IT include the relatively low level and technical, such as data storage on demand through server virtualization, or processing power on demand through secure remote access to a vendor's computers. At the other extreme, examples include richer and more complex IT-enabled business capabilities, including outsourcing an entire business process such as call center handling or order fulfillment, the better to handle peaks and valleys of business volume.
Today, it is increasingly becoming possible for new information systems and IT-based business capabilities to be "already there" when business people come asking. COD is fast becoming reality thanks to three sets of advances:
- Anticipation of tomorrow's needs is no longer guesswork, thanks to the disciplines of demand and opportunity management, and to the technologies of data mining and business analytics. IT-savvy business people can shape technology's role in their enterprises.
- Sourcing opportunities for IT capability have expanded dramatically into a worldwide market for both technologies and talent. You can rent what you need very quickly and get it working for you 24/7.
- Technology has become highly modular, scalable, flexible, integratable and interchangeable. Today's platforms - think Amazon.com and Google - know few limits.
COD does not mean simply having IT services at the ready - it means new business capabilities are available as needed. COD represents the "next level" of IT performance and business value. Getting there entails a whole new operating model for IT - work processes, service structures, sourcing, management, and business relationships.
COD can only be achieved if the business has thoroughly modular and flexible information, software, and infrastructure that IT (or business) staff can recombine and reconfigure rapidly, if not instantaneously. At the same time, an corporation's processes must be actively managed from a single, unifying business architecture that optimizes IT investments, leverages the organization's main sources of competitive advantage, and supports changing organizational goals and priorities.
And yet, for most of us, the technology infrastructures we have built over the last 30 years represent a huge investment, consume a major chunk of the IT budget, and still do not enable the rapid deployment of new capabilities. Too often, legacy systems act more as constraints on business capability than enablers of it.
This Re.sults® report explores ways to lengthen horizon, accelerate timing, and improve the overall anticipation of business demand for technology-enabled capability. It examines the challenges inherent to implementing agile supply strategies for people, processes, and technology. It also explains how information technology architecture - the principles and practices that define how your infrastructure, applications, and services fit together and evolve - shapes and enables capability on demand.
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