Investing in Digital Information Systems: It’s All About the Value
Gerald Grant, Professor, Information Systems, has spent decades reframing the narrative on how businesses look at the governance of innovative digital information systems (IS) investments and how to help public and private organizations optimize value from both a strategic and organizational behaviour perspective.
If technology is a significant driver of innovation, then it is essential that organizations understand how to use the power of technology to deliver outcomes their customers want and are willing to pay for. Gerald describes how companies see technology and innovative ideas as instrumental, yet most have a limited perspective on technology’s role in a company.
“It’s not about the technology itself; it’s about understanding how the technology will add value to the customer and how an organization manages the process of integrating innovative digital systems into organizational life.”
Gerald understands that the mindset and process need to be responsive and improvisational to the dynamic environment of an organization and its culture. As such, he devotes much of his research to helping organizations, countries—people—build their capabilities to leverage technology successfully.
Gerald advises organizations to focus on the end goal and to ask this important question: How will the desired technology add value, not just for your organization, but for your customer as well? So much appears intuitive—we think technology equals better, faster, more efficient. It can, but it is not that simple. From a governance perspective, many organizations remain short-sighted. The problem may stem from an idealized expectation of technology. Organizations are dynamic and fluid. There is a human element of course, so people create multiple dimensions that change how technology can add benefits—or where it can fall short—to the day-to-day operations.
The pandemic, for example, has shown us that without technology, many businesses would have ground to a halt.
“What we are facing now is not only the significance of digital technology but the realization that it’s at the core of what organizations do; it’s no longer something on the side.”
And so, private and public organizations need first to understand the desired goals, and then allow IS integration to include strategies that help mitigate issues, improve efficiencies, and most importantly, add value to the organization. The concepts of organizational learning, building new capabilities, and understanding new employee and operational routines are what bind the technology with the value an organization seeks to achieve.
“We need to look at technology as symbiotic. We don’t need it to replace humans, we need it to integrate with how humans function in society. Technology should be enhancing and synergistic.”
Gerald’s years of experience and expertise in research and his visionary approach to IS governance, management, and integration have earned him the role of a highly coveted advisor.
Prompted to put pen to paper, Gerald, along with co-author, Robert Collins, wrote, The Value Imperative: Harvesting Value from Your IT Initiatives (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). The book aims to help both business and information technology (IT) leaders to shift their focus from technology project implementation to that of value realization and introduce them to a new business model called “The Agricultural Model” for managing IT in organizations.
Perhaps the seed to his great ideas of reframing IS integration was planted during Gerald’s PhD work at the London School of Economics, focusing on the implementation of large-scale enterprise IS in organizations in Zimbabwe. His work on strategic management of digital technologies in developing countries revealed the importance of understanding the end goal; that integrating technology is not linear, and that limitations with successful IS integration were not about a lack of training or knowledge, but more a governance issue.
Gerald went on to consult on projects related to the digital divide, information communication technology (ICT) capacity building, and the development of national ICT strategies in Commonwealth countries. He was instrumental in planning and facilitating seminars and workshops for senior government officials in the UK, Malta, East and Southern Africa, the Caribbean, and Asia.
Gerald truly practices what he preaches: bringing value to organizations and to his own life and community. His research has strong societal undertones of inclusivity and reframes how we think about technology and the value it brings to our world. One of Gerald’s current projects focuses on facilitating Black community-led research to break down systemic barriers Black entrepreneurs face in Canada today.
A further testament to his ongoing commitment to community is his role as chair of the board of Connected Canadians, a nonprofit organization that aims to bridge the gap between seniors and technology by promoting digital literacy skills and provide technical training and support—and one of the founders just happens to be one of Gerald’s PhD students.
Gerald’s overarching mission in his research, his teaching, and his life is to allow organizations and people to live to their full potential—with a little help from technology.