Role of IT at Motorola Solutions
In class this week we discussed the role of IT and the four different ways a company can view its IT organization including IT as an Engine Room, IT as Global Business Service Provider, IT IS the Business, and Everyone’s IT. This discussion about the role of IT made me think about my IT Business Analyst internship at Motorola Solutions over the summer in the Front Office IT organization. While at the company I often heard many of the older employees talk about how only five years ago the company viewed the IT department as an engine room. The organization and the employees within the company believed that the IT team should only be responsible for “keeping the lights on” by maintaining and sometimes upgrading the company’s IT infrastructure. However today many of the employees at the company and myself would unanimously agree that the company’s management views IT as Global Business Service Provider. Everyone within the IT department would agree this is the role of IT today, since various products delivered by the company now incorporate software developed by the IT department. With the slow progression within the company to go from an IT department that functions as an engine room to an IT department that serves as a Global Business Service Provider, I wonder how long it will take for management to realize the potential of IT as the business?