Technology vs. Business: Who Should Hold the Reins of Enterprise Digitalization?

Currently, digital transformation has become an inevitable task for enterprises. However, the digital construction results of most enterprises are often unsatisfactory. There is a significant gap between the ideal and the reality, and various problems emerge one after another. The most common phenomenon is the disconnection between technology and business.

The reasons can be summarized into several aspects: insufficient technical capabilities, inadequate business integration, lack of operational management, and no participation from leadership. In some enterprises, the situation becomes even more chaotic after implementing digital management. The business department blames the system, while the technical department attributes it to the lack of management capabilities in the business department. In Lao Yang's view, the technical and business departments within an enterprise are like a pair of "love - hate" partners. Sometimes, they seem to have the same goal of using digital technology to improve efficiency, but in fact, they are in a covert struggle.

When a project is initiated, the technical and business departments often argue over the issue of leadership. For example, the information department believes that it has more technical expertise and a better understanding of digitalization, so it is more suitable to take overall control. On the other hand, the business department thinks that it should lead the realization of its own needs, as the participation of the information department may cause many unnecessary troubles. Both sides seem to have valid points, but which one is more reasonable?

What are the advantages and disadvantages if the information department leads the digital project construction?

As we all know, the advantage of the information department lies in its profound technical accumulation and professional capabilities. Here, Lao Yang refers more to technical capabilities. Although the comprehensive professional capabilities of the information departments in many enterprises have been continuously improving with the accumulation of project experience, they are still considered insufficient in the eyes of leadership and the business department. The most obvious advantage of the information department is its familiarity with various software, hardware, and network architectures. It can select the most suitable digital tools and platforms from the perspective of technical feasibility, ensuring that the project has an advanced technical architecture, high stability, and scalability.

At the same time, during the entire process of promoting the digital project, the greatest advantage of the information department is that it can efficiently solve technical problems by virtue of its technical advantages, control technical costs, and ensure that the project progresses in accordance with relevant project standards and processes. It can strictly control the technical risks of the project and reduce the probability of project failure caused by technical problems.

In addition, the information department will design digital solutions that can be used in multiple departments or business scenarios within the enterprise from a professional perspective, following industry standards and best practices, or review the rationality of third - party software companies' solutions. At the same time, the information department has a standardized mindset and will establish unified technical specifications and data standards during the project construction process, realizing data sharing and multi - system integration among different departments and eliminating system islands and data islands.

Of course, there are also obvious disadvantages when the information department leads the digital project construction. For example, the staff in the information department often lack front - line business experience and have an insufficient in - depth understanding of business control processes and actual needs. This may easily lead to a disconnection between the introduced or developed system and the actual business application needs. The business department often uses this as an excuse to say that the system is not user - friendly and refuses to use it.

In addition to the understanding of business, Lao Yang believes that the communication and upward management capabilities of the information department have always been a weakness. This weakness is an inherent flaw and has always been criticized by enterprise leadership. This results in a natural professional barrier between the technical and business departments. During project requirement communication, it is difficult to accurately understand and convey requirements in the language familiar to the business department, leading to information asymmetry or a situation of "talking at cross - purposes", increasing the communication cost and the risk of misunderstanding in the project, and affecting the project's progress efficiency and final results.

The lack of upward management capabilities directly affects the information department's ability to obtain more policy and resource support from senior management like the business department, which also directly affects the success and value realization of the digital project.

From the above, we can easily see that the advantages of the information department leading the enterprise's digital transformation construction are as follows:

1. Strong technical professionalism to control technical risks;

2. Reduce the risk of project selection and help reduce technical costs;

3. Effectively avoid system and data islands;

The disadvantages are summarized as follows:

1. Lack of business experience and insufficient understanding of requirements, resulting in a system that is "usable but not practical";

2. The rigid technical thinking is difficult to adapt to flexible business scenarios, resulting in a slow response to requirements;

3. Insufficient communication and upward management capabilities, which easily lead to misunderstandings in requirements, and the system functions are difficult to meet business needs. At the same time, due to the low status of the information department within the enterprise and lack of voice, it is difficult to obtain sufficient resources to ensure the promotion and application effect of the digital project;

At this time, many fans may say that since the information department does not understand business, the digital project should be led by the business department. In fact, the business departments of some enterprises do bypass the information department to carry out project construction on their own. Will it definitely succeed? A large number of cases prove that it may not!

Lao Yang believes that the greatest advantage of the business department leading the digital project construction lies in its accurate grasp of business requirements. That is to say, it knows its own business pain points best. In the process of digital project construction, it can ensure that the functions of the digital system closely revolve around business requirements, and the developed functions are more in line with actual work scenarios, truly solving the problems encountered by the business department in work and improving the efficiency and quality of business processing. At the same time, since the business department has close working relationships with other departments, it has more advantages than the information department in mobilizing internal resources. Therefore, during the project promotion process, it can more conveniently coordinate the relationships between various departments, obtain relevant support and cooperation. For example, it is easier to persuade other departments to accept and use the new system, reduce the resistance during the project implementation process, and promote the project implementation more easily.

However, there are also many problems when the business department leads the enterprise's digital project construction. For example, most members of the business department lack professional technical knowledge. During the project planning and implementation process, it is difficult for them to accurately judge the feasibility of technical solutions and the rationality of technical selection. They are easily deceived and led by third - party software companies. Sometimes, due to excessive focus on business requirements, they may ignore the difficulty and cost of technical implementation and choose unrealistic technical solutions, resulting in the project being difficult to implement technically in a short period. There may be serious project delays, over - budget, or even project abandonment, and at the same time, the digital cost will be too high. Another major problem is that the business department often only focuses on the business requirements of its own department and lacks the awareness and ability of collaboration, which leads to two problems:

First, the introduced system only one - sidedly meets the needs of its own department, ignoring other departments, resulting in a low fit in system functions and making it difficult for other departments to use;

Second, the scalability in the later stage is not considered at the technical level, and the relevant standardization construction is not considered at the implementation level, resulting in difficulties in integrating with other systems in the later stage, forming data islands, which is not conducive to the construction and collaborative development of the enterprise's overall digital ecosystem. At the same time, the cost of later data governance and technical development remains high.

So, it is not difficult to see that the advantages of business - led digital project construction are as follows:

1. Close to business, more accurately solve business pain points;

2. Drive business growth faster and more directly;

3. Easier to obtain resource support;

Similarly, the disadvantages are also obvious:

1. Lack of technical knowledge, being passive in technology, easily causing the accumulation of technical debts, difficult to integrate in the later stage, and high cost;

2. Prone to the problem of data islands, increasing the difficulty of later data governance and data integration;

3. High data security risk;

In summary, whether the digital project construction of an enterprise is led by the information department or the business department, there are both advantages and disadvantages. The enterprise's digital transformation requires both the keen sense of the business department and the technical support of the IT department. Only by breaking down departmental barriers and building a new type of digital production relationship can technology truly empower business and achieve a synergistic effect of 1 + 1 > 2. This is not only a change in the project construction model but also an upgrade of organizational capabilities and management thinking.

The ideal solution is to build a "dual - wheel drive" collaborative model. The information department and the business department jointly establish an integrated organization, formulate cross - departmental collaboration processes and performance appraisal mechanisms, and incorporate the implementation rate of business requirements and the success rate of technical solutions into the appraisal indicators of both sides. At the same time, through regular "business - technology mutual training camps", professional barriers can be broken, and compound talents who understand both technology and business can be cultivated. Therefore, only by deeply integrating technology and business and enabling innovative thinking and practical experience to empower each other can the enterprise be promoted to the other side of high - quality development in the digital wave.

So, who do you think should lead the enterprise's digital transformation construction project?

This article is from the WeChat official account "Xiangjiang Digital Review" (ID: benpaoshuzi), author: Lao Yang, published by 36Kr with authorization.