Coping With Technological Shifts: Organizational Actions to Adapt IT Infrastructures

Abstract

Information technology infrastructures (ITI)—arrangements of shared IT services and technical components that support an organization's strategy and processes—are vital to organizations. They play key strategic roles, which are at the core of the business operations and impact performance. However, technological shifts are major threats to any organizations’ ITI. To cope with technological shifts, organizations must sense technological evolutions, seize the related opportunities, and transform their ITI, simply put it, they must become agile. Still, the question for practitioners is: What actions should be deployed to build organizational agility to cope with technological shifts and adapt their ITI? Twenty organizational actions were identified by 29 ITI experts that were grouped into three interrelated vectors: 1) Nurturing proactive technological culture, mindset, and competencies; 2) Codesigning enterprise architecture; and 3) Piloting the ITI. These actions should help organizations become more agile, while guiding practitioners in evolving and adapting their ITI.