Thursday 19 August 2010

Strategy vs Utility

Martin Fowler, one of the most influential people in the IT area, voiced once again an interesting opinion. You can read the full article here: http://martinfowler.com/bliki/UtilityVsStrategicDichotomy.html

In short, he says that you should be aware whether an IT project is just a utility or an strategic differentiator. The part that made me write this was his opinion on utility software. He phrases it like this:

My view is that for a utility function you buy the package and adjust your business process to match the software.

I haven't heard it that radical. But after some thinking, I agree. I guess in many cases it is easier and cheaper to make changes to your processes than to develop the perfect software for your current process. I would even expect that utility software is designed to support best practise. You might implement best practise in an non-strategic area just by adjusting your processes around standard software. 

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