Traditionally, the role of the IT department is to support the business. However, over the last years, the digital evolution has in many cases changed the business models itself and, in that way, also the role of IT.
For many companies, ICT and Technology is now business critical and central in the value delivery. Take as an example hospitals. Centralizing all the patient information in an Electronic Patient Dossier (EPD - Healthcare) makes ICT and other technology (ex. scanners, etc) business critical for the operation of a hospital. For some companies the business is completely driven by technology. In these cases, we can talk about Business Technology.
It is crucial that IT and Business are aligned.
The concept of Business Technology (BT) is introduced to nominate the complete set of technology (broader than the pure ICT components) the business needs to be supported and managed. BT is there to automate production and processes, and serves as a support for the people by:
· automating repetitive tasks;
· diminishing human errors;
· assisting complex actions and procedures.
BT encompasses the traditional ICT components but goes further in many cases. Consequently, ICT departments are more and more in charge of this broader BT components. And for the same reason ICT departments are asked by the Business to help and to introduce improvements, amongst which Digitization and other innovations.
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