Rumours of IT's value as a catalyst for innovation have been greatly exaggerated. Mark Twain might have uttered these words had he lived in today's hyped-up world of information technology.
Many in the vendor community would have you believe that business innovation is the core value of IT and the realization of that value is proportionate to the level of IT investment made by a company. True innovators might beg to differ.
Take, for example, a recent press release from SAP Canada Inc. The software developer suggests IT investment is extremely significant when it comes to business innovation.
Now, no doubt IT has, in the past, proved to be instrumental in achieving greater efficiency and productivity within companies, but how big a part does it play in actually enabling business innovation?
SAP cites an Ipsos-Reid survey of "Canada's leading IT executives" who say they believe "IT has a crucial role to play in enabling innovation." But in examining the evidence for such an assertion, the claim seems subjective.
Survey results do show that 51 per cent of 133 respondents ranked business innovation among the top three areas of greatest positive impact from IT. On the surface, that result may seem significant, but consider how other attributes were ranked.
Operational efficiency as an area of positive impact, for example, ranked in the top three for 78 per cent of respondents, while business productivity was cited by 71 per cent.
The telling point may be what respondents ranked as the top benefit of IT. Operational efficiency was voted No. 1 by 36 per cent and business productivity came out on top in the minds of 26 per cent.
By comparison, business innovation ranked No. 1 with only 6 per cent of respondents -- behind the IT benefit of mobilizing work forces, which was cited by 8 per cent. And yet, SAP's press release announced the survey results under the headline: "Canada's Road to Business Growth and Innovation Runs Through the IT Department."
Consider where these same Canadian IT executives said they'd be spending their IT dollars this year. A total of 23 per cent said personal hardware such as laptops, desktops and monitors would be the top investment priority in 2007. Operational management software was next in line, with enterprise information management ranking as the No. 1 investment for 14 per cent and security applications for 10 per cent.
It seems fair to consider whether such things are the tools of business innovation enablement.
Let's not suggest that IT doesn't have any part to play in helping businesses to be innovative; rather it's the disconcerting trend by purveyors of IT to perhaps oversell the value of innovation achieved through IT investment.
The marketing rhetoric may have been spurred by the haunting assertions of Harvard Business Review writer Nicholas Carr, who a few years ago professed that IT doesn't matter.
His often misunderstood point was that there's no competitive advantage gained from investment in information technology. And it ignited a firestorm, particularly among vendors that took great exception to the debunking of what most positioned as a key value proposition.
Mr. Carr added to the "IT Doesn't Matter" discussion a couple of years later, in 2005, by postulating that businesses would soon discover that it made no sense to own and manage computing capability.
In a nine-page document, called "The End of Corporate Computing," Mr. Carr contended that IT was at a stage where the transition from information technology as a built-and-owned corporate function would move to a service delivered by a utility provider.
Seems Mr. Carr sees IT more as a commodity rather than a catalyst for innovation.
The truth may be that achieving business innovation has much more to do with smart people than smart technology.
