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COVER STORY: COMMON GROUND

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Bios

MICHAEL S. CHIAPPETTA
vice president, Fair Isaac

What's the best business alignment lesson you ever learned?
Home banking, whose popularity with consumers forced banks to align technology around customers at a rapid pace.

What do you think the business/ IT partnership will look like in 10 years? 20? 50? A century from now?
I hope we'll see the appointment of Chief Decision Officers, because that's the part of the IT infrastructure that will continue to deliver value, most else being commodity services (e-mail, payroll, etc.) that will be outsourced.

JANE GRIFFIN
principal, Deloitte

What's the best business alignment lesson you ever learned?
Alignment is a people issue, not a technology issue. You've got to align the people within your organization before you do anything else.

What do you think the business/ IT partnership will look like in 10 years? 20? 50? A century from now?
I hope IT becomes a part of business guidance, with a seat at the table. Technologists are able to offer ideas that can change a business.

KEVIN N. QUIRING
partner, Accenture

What's the best business alignment lesson you ever learned?
You have to be leery when IT alone is writing the check. There's always the risk that business is not going to be in alignment with IT.

What do you think the business/ IT partnership will look like in 10 years? 20? 50? A century from now?
On the one hand technology will become easier to implement and more and more commoditized. On the other hand, technology becomes increasingly important and integral to business throughout the company. Because of that dichotomy, alignment becomes much more natural when business-facing technology people live in business units, keeping track of all that's going on.

Cover Story

Common ground
Seven leading business and IT alignment specialists talk about what it means to grow an organization where two mindsets work as one.

Discussion topics:

Alignment defined
Our experts explain alignment and its relationship within business.
Aligned or misaligned?
Insights into proper and improper alignment.
Leading the way
Discussion on who needs to lead the way in bringing business and IT together.
Benefits for business and IT
Meeting business and IT goals.
A never-ending journey
A continuous evolution within the company and the benefits from proper alignment.
Bios
Further insights from the seven leading business and IT alignment specialists.

View full document > PDF 381kb For the second part of our special coverage on aligning business and IT, go to Next steps: Transforming the way business and IT interact.

CATHRYN RHEINER
vice president, CRM solutions, SAP Americas

What's the best business alignment lesson you ever learned?
Stay as connected as possible to the revenue stream—stay close to the customers. IT is too often too far removed from customers and their impact on the company.

What do you think the business/ IT partnership will look like in 10 years? 20? 50? A century from now?
I'm hoping that it's so well integrated that companies no longer experience an "us against them" mentality. Everybody is focused on affecting the business and making it better.

BRIAN ROBERTSON
managing director, BearingPoint

What's the best business alignment lesson you ever learned?
The importance of finding the "burning platform," shared by both IT and the business, that will motivate enthusiasm and innovation.

What do you think the business/ IT partnership will look like in 10 years? 20? 50? A century from now?
It will be a true partnership. Each party bringing its own strengths, united towards achieving a common goal. IT will be at the executive table with full credibility, functioning as a business and taking accountability as well as managing innovation and enabling business success.

PAUL RODWICK
vice president, marketing and applications product management, Siebel Business Analytics

What's the best business alignment lesson you ever learned?
Communicate regularly. Communicate bad news faster than good news. Be able to design for flex so you can adjust and manage change.

What do you think the business/ IT partnership will look like in 10 years? 20? 50? A century from now?
The barriers between business and IT will be reduced because of the trend for IT to become business savvy, business fluent. [Also] because business users are becoming much more aware of technology and have increased expectations.

BJORN-ERIK WILLOCH
vice president, global consulting solutions leader, Capgemini

What's the best business alignment lesson you ever learned?
The best lessons come from failures. I worked with a high-tech organization that just missed an entire cycle/generation of products and services. The company almost broke down and bankrupted. Misalignment was a big driver, one of the reasons why they didn't catch the cycle. And the lesson is that this is not just theory: Companies could go bankrupt if this is done wrong.

What do you think the business/ IT partnership will look like in 10 years? 20? 50? A century from now?
The world moves so fast it is stunning. Young people will be running everything and gray hair will come at a premium!