Innovation vs. Standardization
posted by Anna Mar, April 17, 2011IT standardization can improve efficiency and quality. On the flip side — forcing one standard down everyone's throat can limit innovation.
Competitive Advantage
Innovation should be encouraged in core business areas that are likely to generate competitive advantage.Example: An Investment Bank that encourages innovation of algorithmic trading systems
Common Services
In areas outside the business' core competencies standard solutions often make sense.Example: Standardization of networking, computing platforms, ESB, ETL and other commoditized IT-services.
Large Organizations and Standardization
Large companies often have thousands of deployed software packages. Such businesses have:- complex processes
- expensive licences for competing products that do the same thing
- duplicated data
- duplicated processing
- exposure to antiquated legacy systems
- a need to staff 1000s of IT skills
Large companies can unlock enormous value by standardizing processes and technologies.
Small Organizations and Innovation
Small businesses (especially start ups) need to innovate and grow — standards and governance processes need to be light weight.Large Organizations and Innovation
Large companies should consider exempting strategic business units from cumbersome governance processes. In some cases, it makes sense to completely exempt business units with a demonstrated ability to drive new revenue.Enterprise Architecture Guide A large collection of enterprise architecture tools. |
A digital signature embedded in information that can be tied to a source such as an individual or an IP address. |
Recently on Simplicable
Authentication vs Authorizationposted by Anna MarIt is easy enough to confuse authentication and authorization. |
Multifactor Authentication Explainedposted by Anna MarHow to confirm the identity of users and entities. |