Information technology concepts and applications

Information Technology

The Role of an IT Manager in Strategic Management Process

Having effective strategies in any form of management is very important in running and administering organizations these days. This is due to the emergence of a variety of management techniques that make an organization more competitive in this age of digital technology wherein industries are more motivated to perform well and achieve more with the help of the comfort, efficiency, and speed, that information technology brings to man. In view of this, in an organization where IT plays an important role to achieving success, the IT manager similarly and equally plays vital and critical roles in strategic management processes.

Strategic management planning is among the backbones of a good running organization. Without strategic planning process, the task of managing may not succeed. Hence, in IT, an IT manager must ensure that his management processes are effective and well established, especially granting the fact that IT plays very important roles in the many operations and processes of any organization these days.

To be able to attain a successful strategic management process, an IT manager has to play several roles that aim to support the success of his IT department as well as in contributing to the success of the entire organization. Being in IT where rapid and continuous changes exist, an IT manager must have the skills of accommodating new management strategies whose objective is to adapt to new technologies. As indicated by Drew Morton (2004) in his Case Study: Role of the Manager @ IBM,

The global, technology-enhanced marketplace is transforming the manager's role. Managers require more skills: accommodating an ever-changing matrix environment of shared leadership and report-to roles; leading teams that are geographically dispersed and mobile; creating an environment that encourages continual innovation vis-a-vis rapid market changes, and more."

The first and foremost role of an IT manager in strategic management process is to establish a good sense of work relationship between his people and his organization. It is important that in any management, good work relationship is built to ensure the success of the rest of the organization's processes. Therefore, as a general role, an IT manager must have good leadership skills and strategies so he can effectively perform with his group his other management plans, tasks, and strategies.

Another role of an IT manager in strategic management process is to ensure that the goals of IT are focused on the needs and objectives of the organization. Drew Morton (2004) indicated the following ideal guides of a manager's role at IBM company.

A use the learning process to address business-unit priorities and define action plans create new e-approaches to align teams on key business objectives target managers' individual development needs in leading performance through people provide a learning and communications initiative that would support peer learning and shared objectives.

An IT manager should be able to determine and define the priorities of his organization. This is important because it is from his understanding and view of the organization's needs where the strategies of his IT department/division will be based. In organizational meetings concerning management processes, the presence of an IT manager is most of the time necessary due to the widespread transformation of the many tasks into computerization. Hence, during such instances, an IT manager should take the lead of identifying the best e-solutions to the needs, particularly on information needs, of his organization. He must have the ability to create approaches that can best meet the needs of the organization. Mark Gordon (2002) suggests the following.

The trick is gauging how soon new technologies will be assimilated by society at large, he says. This is where the CIO's role as technology scout is most valuable to his partners in the executive suite."

Moreover, Gordon (2002) indicated the following idea of Miyamoto Musashi.

In strategy it is important to see distant things as if they were close and to take a distanced view of close things." This is the role of a scout, to go beyond the immediate problem, seeing its true implications and identifying other, perhaps more important challenges on the horizon."