Embedded IT is not a structure. It is a configuration of levers for the CIO.

During a recent conversation with a Vice President of Application Development at a worldwide insurance and consumer services company, I commented about development resources being at the front lines of how leaders structure for alignment. When I asked her what she thought about that, she said, “We are taking all of our development resources out of IT and putting them in the business lines. We are decentralizing to embed in the business.”

“Embed” is a buzz word increasingly being thrown around in IT circles. Although the concept has been around for more than a decade, CIOs are beginning to hear it more and more. The word implies that IT carves out significant portions of its structure and places them under the control of the business. However, if you were to ask five different leaders what ‘embedded IT’ means, you would get ten different answers.

In The Levers of Embedded IT, the follow up to The Tech BuzzKill, I sought to define ‘embedded IT.’ While conducting my interviews and research, it became clear that there is no industry standard definition. The term itself is polarizing, and many CIOs are on the fence about it. Some are moving forward while others are moving away from it.

Opinions and Outcomes of Embedded IT are Mixed

One CIO from a top consumer products company recently told me that she had started to implement a new embedded IT structure. But she received so much resistance from her internal IT group that she had to pull back the strategy.

“Embedded IT is a movement to get more service (from IT) in an increasingly demanding environment. ”


Another CIO in the education sector is opposed to the idea of embedded IT. To him, carving out IT substructures and putting them in the business is equivalent to pillaging IT, and will in no way enhance IT’s responsiveness to the business. His greatest concern is that it legalizes shadow IT and gives license to the business to create pockets of technology outside centralized control and impossible to rein in. It also places far too much pressure on effective governance. In his opinion, governance is not often seen as a positive. People don’t like to be controlled, and governance is control.

The literal implementation of ‘embedded IT’ decentralizes IT, and puts the business in charge of IT assets, all with the goal of making IT ‘more responsive’. While this is a noble focus in theory, it is very difficult to achieve in reality. Of all the CIOs I have seen work to implement a literal embedding of IT, none have successfully achieved their goals. The aforementioned Vice President of Application Development from the worldwide insurance and consumer services company is no longer working there. Neither is the CIO and much of the top structure. The reasons were exactly as predicted by the education sector CIO who thought that embedded IT pillages IT.

Does this mean that ‘embedded IT’ is not a legitimate relationship direction? Are those evangelizing its merits misguided? The answer is No.

Interest in the concept of ‘embedded IT’ is rising because of two dynamics:

  1. the advent of cloud, and
  2. the increase in tech savviness of business team members.

The rising interest in embedded IT is a signal that more is expected from IT, and CIOs need to respond.

It’s About IT Responsiveness

Levers of Embedded ITLike shadow IT, ‘embedded IT’ at its core is a movement to get more service in an increasingly demanding environment. As one CIO said to me, “shadow IT develops when the customer does not feel served.” The same goes for ‘embedded IT.’ In most cases, the business does not really want to specialize in IT, they just want more responsive service and a stronger relationship.

Whether it be alignment or decentralization, CIOs can systematically craft a business relationship model that positions IT for maximum interaction with the business. To do this, they must assess the situation carefully.

Levers Available to the CIO

There are levers every CIO can use depending on his or her assessment of the situation, which I have classified into three categories:

  1. People
  2. Structure
  3. Culture

People levers include:

  • BRM - having a strong team of Business Relationship Managers (BRMs),

  • IT authority – installing business line or regional CIOs,

  • Applications leadership - ensuring a talented Vice President of Applications is in place,

  • PMO Leadership - ensuring a business minded leader is in place over the PMO.

Structure levers include:

  • Account manager BRM – a single point of contact for the business into IT,

  • Applications tower as BRM – This is the most common method for centering the business relationship. It can be organized by system, function, business line or profit center,

  • PMO as BRM – a unique method and a natural home for BRM, but only when the leader is not a methodology zealot, and thinks “business first,”

  • Governance as BRM – Not a commonly used lever, but some proactive CIOs are using governance more and more as cloud drives shadow IT,

  • Decentralized IT – the literal “Embedded IT” concept where IT forfeits part of its structure into the business. This may be unavoidable for the CIO, who need to stay strategically relevant when this happens, through Enterprise Architecture and a strong governance group.

Cultural levers include:

  • Business interaction - IT must work with the business on a systematic and constant basis. Building a culture that encourages this automatically matures IT and enables it to embed.

  • Marketing IT’s value – This cultural lever about doing and telling, not about wooing and selling. IT should not be hesitant to advertise its successes.

  • Accountability - This goes hand in hand with marketing IT’s value. IT needs to be transparent to the business and own its opportunities to improve. An accountable organization is leveraged by the business.

  • Business first – Business first IT departments have two mottos. First, there are no technology projects, only business projects that heavily leverage technology. Second, there are no technology professionals, only business professionals with a technology skill set. The more IT team members think this way, the more the business pulls them closer and trusts them.

  • Urgency - Speed of service can be as important as quality. I was recently at a restaurant where I had one of the best meals I’d had in a long time. But, it came an hour after I ordered it so I left that restaurant unhappy.

  • Innovation - Order takers are not respected. Idea makers are. Innovation is an important part of embedding IT in the business.
Embedded IT is not a structure. It is a configuration of levers. All of these levers are available to be pulled in order to bring the business and IT together.

Embedded IT does not have an industry accepted definition because it is clear there is no one definition that works. The CIO can exert some control over how embedded IT becomes by custom-crafting business and IT relationships to the needs of the organization using this lever approach. No industry definition need apply.

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