What signs should CIOs be looking for to know if its right to consider an organizational change?
If you’re getting a lot of pressure around cost and efficiency, moving towards centralization and shared services makes a lot of sense. As soon as you do that, you need to be aware of some probable pressures in the opposite direction. These pressures relate to weak alignment and to not being a close partner with the business units. Whatever you have, you’re probably doing to need to drift in one direction or the other. There’s no perfect organizational structure. It depends on how good the economy is, and how well your company is performing. If you’re company is making lots of money, then you’re going to be moving in the direction of aligning closely with the business units. If times are tough, that’s the time typically to shift more towards shared services and centralization. Q. Is IT a moving target more than other functional areas of the business? Every organizational structure for a specific business function is a moving target. Other groups in an organization, along with IT, need
