That is a good review of the IT/Business relationships and the point is well made that it requires good business driven IT governance to work in the third case.

IT governance can't exist in a vacuum. For good IT governance there must be good business governance - the two are intimately interlinked.

So there is an easy way to answer your question in the case of these two companies. Do they show, for example, in their annual report, evidence of good governance? Do they show a move towards greater transparency, openness, responsiveness to stakeholders and is this move backed up by genuine evidence or just window dressing?

If there is no such move, or if it is evidently just window dressing, then they are moving backwards and getting rid of the IT director is a negative step.

If there is such a move and sound evidence of good governance, then it may well be a positive move.

Boots is undergoing another takeover/merge right now... this hot on the heals of a "merger" with the Alliance Group (hence, it's now known as "Alliance Boots", not "Boots". (www.allianceboots.com)

As a result, they're going to be downsizing whatever they can, in addition to reducing the operational duplication from merging two previously independent organisations.

Haven't both Boots and House of Fraser been bought by Private Equity houses? In which case this could just be an example of them ripping out another large C-level cost.

maybe?

*whalesong alert*

...as an IT magazine you want to big up your industry.

outsourced most of their ops to IBM three years ago. So they're probably just about to insource again.

"C) IT as an integral function of the business This is characterised by an "us" or "we" mentality which has the business and IT objectives integral to each other indistinguishable. There may or may not be an IT director in place, but if there is, they are more of a business person than a technical one."

And just what does "they are more of a business person than a technical one" mean? It is just a platitude.

"The obvious starting point is to ask what an IT director of a large organisation does"

Is it? I do not think so. The starting point is to ask a company what the IT director's duties and responsibilities are. Then ask what the IT director does.

"given the fact that most businesses' fortunes are now inextricably linked to their IT capabilities"

Yes. I would mention first that all businesses' fortunes are inextricably linked to the information deemed necessary to those businesses to survive.

And who should be responsible for this information in a company?

What companies require first is a director of information not an IT director.

Go to any (large?) company and ask; is there a board-level member that is responsible to the company for the timely gathering of, production of, transformation of, assessment of, accessibility of and storage of information?

Technology is just a set of tools that can be applied to the domain of information.

If you want to look at where IT fits into a retail organization, first look at an industry leader, then see where your company measures up to them.

What Would Wal*Mart Do?

If I'm not mistaken, Wal*Mart has one of the most advanced IT organizations in the world, and their IT director is a key member of the operations group - reporting to the President/CEO at the level of the CFO and as a major contributor to ALL operational and internal organizations.

Simon above hits the nail pretty square: at Wal*Mart, it's not about Technology but about INFORMATION and how it can help the business. This is evident in the way Wal*Mart addresses IT problems: every project, problem, opportunity is measured on time vs. payback. Often a long-term "elegant" solution to a problem will be put on a slower track while a short-term, possibly more costly solution gets done NOW, simply because the payback opportunity in the short term will pay for the long-term project.

At Wal*Mart, everything - and I mean EVERYTHING, including offices, desks, lights, employees - is measured for its contribution to being a retailer. This is not the Jack Welch Economic Value Added measurements done short-term, but at every time measurement in the business life - minute-by-minute to decades in the future. That's why it's not unusual to see "half-assed" projects implemented - with all the work-arounds necessary to do them, only, unlike most other companies, Wal*Mart knows that these are temporary measures and there is a date set that will see them supplanted.

Makes the IT Director's job pretty cushy when he can say at every meeting "we made X dollars in IT this month" - and truly mean it and measure it from the POS scan right up to the corporate bottom line.

THAT'S INFORMATION!

Good point about governance. When does IT governance become corporate governance? The "system" at Abbey (Santander) has been down for days. At what point does this poor level of IT become of interest to the FSA?