Last month we discussed how organizations are using scale to create efficiency as nonprofits launch enterprise-wide digital initiatives. One of the primary success factors we observe of a digital platform or campaign launch is active participation between IT and business unit owners.
And balance between the two teams, in particular, appears to drive the greatest success.
Technology teams need business owners because…
- Business owners provide and represent business goals to IT and technology teams. More than deployment alone, technology teams need to be anchored in business impact of initiatives and solutions they are launching. Business owners can help to support this.
- Business owners can uniquely help to prioritize features and the impact that each will have on goals.
- Business owners can help to define success against goals beyond deployment alone.
- Technology teams seek standardization, but without business owner insights there is no ability to measure potential solutions or determine the right fit for each.
But wait, business owners need technology teams!
- There is an abundance of online tools available to meet a variety of campaign-specific needs – whether related to fundraising, social media or otherwise. Technology teams can provide business owners with broad perspective of how campaign specific requirements might be extended to meet long term or greater needs.
- Technology teams can guide the selection of solutions that complement the organization’s technology philosophy and/or infrastructure, not merely point solutions to meet short-sighted needs. These point solutions may have less opportunity to abide by data standards and data and profile insights may ultimately be underleveraged.
- If technology teams are not permitted in to business discussions, business owners may not have the ability to explore or complete any technical heavy-lifting for larger technical projects such as data integration, CRM, data warehousing, analytics, profile management, or single sign on initiatives.
How does your organization achieve balance? Where is additional balancing required?