At the beginning of the 18th century, manufacturing was largely based around cottage industries producing low volumes of product of variable quality and cost on a small scale. Within less than a century, many of these cottage industries had been swept away by the Industrial Revolution and replaced with large-scale factories, efficiently manufacturing high-quality goods. Abolhassan and his colleagues believe just such a revolution is approaching for the information technology (IT) industry, and this collection of papers discusses their ideas.
The first chapter is an introduction by Abolhassan to the authors’ proposition that an equivalent of the Industrial Revolution is inevitable for the IT industry, and that only industrialized IT production can deliver the high standards of service and quality essential to enable and support business processes in the 21st century. The remaining 26 chapters are then grouped into six parts. In Part 1, chapter 2 discusses the challenges facing modern IT service organizations and the key factors needed for their success.
The chapters of Part 2 look at the processes involved in the industrialization of IT. Chapter 3 discusses the competitive dynamics that are driving the transformation of the IT industry, including structural change and mergers, and chapter 4 considers the move from project focus to products, discussing the advantages of standardized IT services and products. Chapter 5 continues this thread, considering aspects of efficient IT production “factories” in more detail, and chapter 6 compares industrialization in IT with traditional industries. In particular, aspects such as customer expectations and quality are compared with the automotive industry.
Part 3 looks at the efficiency and optimization of IT processes. Chapter 7 discusses “easy win” quality improvements and key performance indicators (KPIs) for IT services, and chapter 8 covers efficiency, cost reduction, and optimization. Chapter 9 covers IT governance, managing and regulating the IT organization (or put another way, “keeping the geeks focused on the business”), and chapter 10 covers project management and reporting, the detailed and necessary feedback to management.
Part 4 is a collection of 11 chapters covering structural change in the IT industry. Chapter 11 looks at the steps involved in structural change and how the transformation can be managed. Chapter 12 considers techniques for improving quality and chapter 13 focuses on standardization and automation. Chapter 14 discusses the need for a business to concentrate on core capabilities and chapter 15 looks at finding the optimum utilization for an organization, explaining why this cannot be 100 percent. Chapter 16 looks at the benefits of standardized collections of IT products and services rather than highly customized solutions, and chapter 17 covers efficient and sustainable data centers. Chapter 18 discusses various sourcing strategies and chapter 19 looks at make-or-buy decisions. These few chapters will be particularly helpful for management in achieving the delicate balance between choosing heavily customized IT systems that are a precise but costly fit to business requirements, or meeting the most important business requirements efficiently with less expensive, more generic “industrialized” IT solutions. Chapter 20 discusses the importance of supplier relationships to an IT organization and how these relationships can be managed, and chapter 21 looks at the issue of people management during structural change.
The chapters of Part 5 deal with various aspects of innovation in IT. Chapter 22 discusses how innovation can generate commercial success if properly integrated into an organization. Chapter 23 looks at the reverse scenario, that of clients driving innovation, and chapter 24 considers the benefits of strategic partnerships for innovation. Chapter 25 explores how organizations can leverage the work of external parties and includes a short case study of the InnoCentive crowdsourcing platform. Chapter 26 wraps up innovation with a discussion on managing innovation within an organization.
The final part provides a summary, conclusions, and views on the path ahead for the IT industry. If you want to quickly glean the main theme of the book, this chapter provides a concise summary.
The organization of this collection of papers into six broad topics makes the book easy to read in short chunks--each chapter can largely standalone. The editor has successfully combined the writing of 28 separate authors to deliver a fairly consistent feel. There is a good glossary and table of contents, but no index--not unusual with compilations of this type. The book is topical, and an interesting view of the state of rapid change within the IT industry. The European focus distinguishes it from other works in the genre of IT business transformation. If you work in the IT industry and want to know where you may be in five years’ time, then this is a must read.
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