A Better Way to Capitalize on Tech Investments

Industry, academia join to find a unified management practice for business and technology

Stamford, CN — October 27, 2003 — Amid the debate over information technology's intrinsic value to business, a group of industry and academic leaders have banded together to form a new, not-for-profit organization called the Business Technology Management (BTM) Institute, which they said is dedicated to providing companies with a better way to capitalize on technology investments.

They said the institute would advance BTM as the first, unified management practice that enables organizations to see how business and technology intersect.

"The need for change has never been greater, given the nearly epic proportions that getting IT wrong has reached," said Faisal Hoque, who came up with the concept of BTM and who now serves as chair of the BTM Institute's Executive Board. "Technology is integral to how companies create value — it needs to be understood and managed this way."

Hoque is also author of "The Alignment Effect: How to Get Real Business Value Out of Technology" (Financial Times Prentice Hall, 2002) and chairman and CEO of Enamics, initial sponsor of the institute.

The institute's cadre of academicians hail from 15 university graduate schools, including Harvard University's Harvard Business School, Emory University's Goizueta Business School, Boston University's School of Management, University of Notre Dame's Mendoza College of Business, University of London's London Business School, Michigan State University's Eli Broad College of Business and Oklahoma University's Michael F. Price College of Business, among others.

The academicians are being joined by other industry experts and private and public sector chief information officers (CIOs) join them, such as Frank Caccamo, principal, Cincinnati Consulting Consortium and former CIO of The Proctor & Gamble Co; and John Trustman, Managing Partner, Salt Island Consulting and former CIO of Aetna Inc.

"Historically, industry and education have treated business and technology management disciplines as add-ons to each other, rather than as a necessarily holistic approach to producing economic, operational and competitive advantages," said V. Sambamurthy, Eli Broad professor of IT at Michigan State University and co-chair of the BTM Institute's Academic Council. "For the first time, we will set our collective sights on bringing these management concepts together as one."

Members said they would collaborate on producing research, publications, books, events, forums and workshops to provide CIOs and their companies, as well as the broader academic community, access to relevant information about business and IT management issues. The institute intends to publish its first research paper in the first half of 2004.

"We are not pushing technology standards as a resolution to what is essentially a management issue," said Dale Kutnick, chairman of META Group, who co-chairs the Industry Council. "We are creating a common management language and standard that companies themselves will have a heavy hand in producing. If practiced, it will then drive value through the rest of the organization, through operations and infrastructure."