


… but is in fact an organisational solution.
Delivering results today while laying foundations for the business of tomorrow – IT departments often find themselves caught between two conflicting aims. On the one side there is the desire for stable, cost-optimised day-to-day business. On the other side there are new business applications for which state-of-the-art technology is indispensable. The term “ambidextrous attitude” describes an organisational approach that takes both of these opposing requirements into account.
(* Ambidexterity = ability to use the right and left hands equally well – in an organisation, this refers to the ability for an organisation to be both innovative/creative and cost-efficient and stable)
You need two strong hands to bring both strategies together in an organisation:
Ambidextrous attitude is the answer to the new role played by IT in a business context. After all, specialist IT knowledge and abilities can make a real difference in critical areas. IT is not a corporate department, it is the breeding ground for successful businesses. But a new culture and a new type of organisational structure are required to leverage the full potential.
These roles can overlap once business models become data-driven, which is why combining them by applying an ambidextrous attitude is so important. A variety of organisational models are possible:
Benefits to IT: Re-positioning away from a pure cost factor to a business-shaping unit.
What the New School of IT is also changing: no technology can replace face-to-face dialogue. Let's talk about your vision.
Founder and Chairman of the Supervisory Board Volker Gruhn +49 231 7000-7000