Radical Shift 5: Diminished Standalone role of IT
Shift 2 to 4 may lead to a diminished standalone role of IT over the next few years. Potentially, a part of IT will become part of centralised business services and other parts will be outsourced with the focus of IT on managing service providers.
So what is left? Within the Natural Resources sector, I would expect that a smaller IT function will survive at the BU level. This function will possess business skills and have a fundamental understanding of core business processes and operational technology. The (day to day and SLA) management of outsourced providers will be part of this function but is strongly supported by the Supply organisation for contract management and administration.
This smaller IT function may be better positioned under Operations or Business Optimisation than its current typical position under Finance.
At corporate level, IT may become part of Business Services providing common systems and infrastructure. The infrastructure and application management are however extremely suitable for outsourcing and IT as part of Business Services will focus on the management of outsourced service providers. Enterprise and Information Architecture should remain a key responsibility for IT and it is the question whether this strategic aspect of IT will receive appropriate attention when this is part of more generic Business Services. A possible solution to this is to subsume this activity in the Corporate Strategy function.
Frits de Vroet
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