Uber: Four Lessons for IT (Updated)
Management challenges at Uber, the market-disrupting transportation company and “sharing economy” pioneer, have been in the news frequently of late. Those challenges have culminated in the ouster of Uber CEO Travis Kalanick. An earlier result of those challenges, as reported by The New York Times, was a report by a law firm engaged to advise Uber’s board of directors. That report recommended numerous “sweeping changes” in Uber’s corporate culture, with a focus on “four prevailing themes:”
- Tone at the top
- Trust
- Transformation
- Accountability
Those four themes are worth applying to any enterprise IT strategy. Herewith, some thoughts on how they can benefit IT at your enterprise.
Tone at the top: Leadership’s commitment to IT
This is a two-part challenge. One part is the tone of top IT leadership. The other part is the tone at the top of the enterprise’s executive team. If those leading IT and the business aren’t fully and clearly committed to a shared, business-focused strategy, IT will never fully deliver its promised or expected benefits.
Trust: How IT earns it
Users and business leaders learn to trust IT exactly the same ways people learn to trust others: repeated positive experiences. When IT consistently fulfills or exceeds its commitments, whether to its users or its managers, trust follows. And that trust is a critical element of the support IT will need to pursue any significant future initiatives.
Transformation: Modern IT is essential
The growth of cloud computing, and of online interactions among buyers, shoppers, influencers, vendors, and partner, make modern IT table stakes for almost every type and size of enterprise. This is especially true for any enterprise seeking to achieve digital transformation or implement a digital business plan.
IT leaders need to lead or help lead this charge, in concert with business leaders across the enterprise. And IT leaders must realize that transformation of IT or the business isn’t about any specific technologies. It’s all about user experience, productivity, and satisfaction, whether those users are business employees, IT team members, customers, or partners. Because those are key elements and drivers of IT’s ultimate goal: delivery of maximum business value.
Accountability: IT must “show and tell”
Accountability and trust are closely linked. IT must be held accountable for its commitments consistently and repeatedly to earn trust. In addition, evolving financial and data protection regulations around the world increasingly make IT responsible for the credible accountability of the enterprise as a whole.
Put another way, say a regulator happens to ask your CEO or CFO about the company’s numbers. If the answer is anything like “that’s what IT told me,” that chain of accountability becomes much less of an abstraction.
IT leaders, teams, technologies, policies, and processes must all support credible accountability. IT leaders and their teams must then employ those technologies, policies, and processes to fulfill or exceed their commitments consistently, and to “show their work” credibly.
Modernize IT. Transform Your Business. With Ivanti.
Ivanti solutions are designed to help you and their teams to achieve the successes and benefits that can make these four themes realities at your enterprise. Discover and inventory what’s on your network. Optimize your assets, hardware and software. Protect and defend your environment against ransomware and other threats. Improve IT service delivery and management. Control users’ applications and admin rights. Easily generate reports and dashboards, as scheduled and on demand. Whatever it takes to modernize IT and maximize its business value. Contact Ivanti today, and let’s see how we can best help you modernize your IT and transform your business.