Centralized vs. Centralized IT Teams
Welcome to ABC’s blog series, where we share our bite-sized, quickly consumable perspectives on trending or highly-discussed topics in the CX, digital platforms, and marketing world—breaking down the buzzword to its most foundational forms, and sharing how to apply it to your business. As simple as ABC.
A question we hear often is: “what should the working model be between the line of business teams and IT?” That is, when it comes to designing CX programs: where is the clear divide between responsibilities and ownership?
This can be a complex and difficult answer, because so much can vary based on the organizational divides your business might have—for example:
If your technical resources reside all under one organization (like IT) in a centralized IT support model, OR
If your Business Units (BUs) have their own technical resources who only need licenses and access to central systems and technology in a decentralized IT model (i.e. leveraging technical expertise on their own team vs. needing to borrow or cross-fund resourcing from IT).
In our experience, a “mostly-decentralized” IT model has fit most of the use cases for our clients—and has tended to be preferred by both the business and IT teams.
Why? Because in this operating model:
IT still has the responsibility of developing, maintaining, and making final decisions on the core infrastructure of the company. This means continuing to ensure compliance, technical feasibility, seamless integration points, and early inclusion (by the BUs) on program strategy & development.
BUs serve themselves through their own technology resources and analysts, freeing up IT to innovate on the company’s larger technology goals.
BUs are empowered to run their programs at the speed/innovation pace they desire, without feeling delayed by the timelines/request process for IT support.
Of course, this model only works when both parties are willing to meet in the middle: the lines-of- business must continuously bring IT into early discussions with new vendors and platform evaluations (or any new tactic bringing in/modifying data), and IT must continuously provide transparency and access to their wider work projects, remaining agile as the business (and their requirements) evolve.
As the old African Proverb says:
If you want to go fast, go alone; but if you want to go far, go together.
And that’s it! As easy as ABC. As always, reach out to us if you have any questions or help implementing these strategies at your company.