Technology Standardization Model

The value proposition of IT to business organizations are enormous, but to benefits from IT an organization has to succeed in integrating IT with the business strategic objectives. To do this, the organizations have to develop its IT architecture capabilities which will serve as an enhancer in evolving the enterprise IT architecture before the firm can realize this value from IT.

Yes, the company should have risk mitigation strategies for the standardized technology architecture stage because while firms move from the application silo stage, they carries along some of the problem that they were facing to the technology standardization stage. The application of specific-data is one problem facing the standardized stage which has to be managed

To overcome this risk, the firm communication capability has to be enhanced to ensure that the CIO can communicate effectively with the business manager to make sure that the senior managers comes to terms with him on the changes he is about to undertake and also present further the value added of that changes to the firm thereby to ensure that the changes are aligned to the business goals of cost effectiveness and will further enhance the efficiency of the organization IT which in future will generate more return on their

This risk in a standardized architecture in relation to funding an investment is that, majority firms who are in this stage are interested about the value they can receive from funding a shared infrastructure architecture as the relative value of a shared infrastructure is difficult to assess. Adding to that, the payback periods of shared infrastructure is longer when compared to other applications. This therefore leads to serious debate among senior management to accept the funding of such project and worst still, managers in firms with standardized technology architectures have noticed that, after some years have gone away some of the early conflicts and errors have been forgotten and employees no longer doubt the engagement of standards or have any problem sharing infrastructure. To overcome this risk of obsolescence and funding, there have to be an agreement between the IT and business manager concerning funding the investment and the models for the enterprise shared infrastructure, which includes even the replacing and upgrading of the technologies before they are outdated. The ways companies in this stage usually does is thus; the IT and business managers will develop the governance structures, for example, an executive committees which will be responsible to grant funding for the shared enterprise