Back in the day, IT in large companies was responsible for providing support to the business. This meant managing hardware, software and networks, so the business could do its work. IT back then was mostly operations and overhead cost center to the business. Move forward to today, with the creation of the Internet, smartphones, tablet and associated technology, corporate IT is delivering business value to the customer.
Customers are now comfortable using technology to do business with companies. This means customers can do business with companies 24/7. No longer do they have to wait until tomorrow to get in their car, fight traffic, fight crowds, to get what they want. They just go on the Internet with their app or web browser. 2016 Christmas sales shows people are interested in using technology to do their shopping.
Business Value Delivery Shift
Technology today allows businesses to deliver value to their customer 24/7 without human-to-human interaction. This is true for B2B and especially B2C businesses. For B2B businesses, once you have a customer, it is easy to have them use a website, app, or APIs to do most of your business interactions. For B2C businesses, you are most likely going to offer up a website and app to connect with customers. In both of these cases, business value is being delivered through technology delivered by corporate IT. This has a number of advantages.
Delivery business value through information technology has a number of advantages. For one, customer convenience is much higher. A customer has access to buy from your company when they want. This is huge! Typically people pay more for convenience, which is why convenience store are more expensive compared to other stores.
Second advantage of delivering value through IT, cost per business transaction goes down. No longer do you need people taking the order during business hours.
Third advantage, is faster business growth. In traditional brick-and-mortar businesses, it takes time and capital to grow, due to physical constraints. Delivering value to customers through IT does not have the same restrictions. A company on the Internet can go global with relative speed and easy when compared to traditional brick-and-mortar companies. To go big through IT, requires some changes.
Impact on IT