If you listen carefully, you will hear the sound of the IT OT convergence highway in your organization.
Shhh. Clear your mind of status quo bias and baggage. Open up your ears and eyes. Feel more sensory antennae popping out of your brain to pick up the palpable sounds.
First, these signals showcase energy, processes, software, equipment and – most importantly – people. Then, our IT OT convergence highway changes how organizations do business and how people work and communicate with one another.
IT/OT convergence describes the integration of information technology (IT) systems used in data-centric computing with operational technology (OT) systems used to monitor events, processes and devices and make adjustments in enterprise and industrial operations.
A great definition. However, just a minute here, folks. Where are the people in this dynamic equation for customer success and innovation within the industrial Internet of Things ecosystem?
Depending on where we sit around the business table, we each have a different vision for co-creating our organization’s IT OT convergence highway.
Today, if I asked you to join me in creating a dialogue for an IT OT convergence highway for your organization, would you sit down with me at your business table?
For starteres, what does our first conversation sound like? Awkward or smooth? Open-minded or inflexible?
Next, consider who else sits at the business table with us? The “usual” suspects? Or some novel, essential and often marginalized catalysts for transformation?
Finally, understand yes, our conversation in unavoidable. We have to start somewhere. It may not be pretty either. However, the relentless pace and cadence of the industrial IoT drives all of us to this sit down at the table, together. And have a translational conversation.
Ultimately, creating our IT OT convergence highway targets creating better and better performance, productivity, profitability and value For our own organization and our clients’ organizations.
Our IT OT convergence highway table is filled by the sounds of diverse and collaborative players. They come from multiple disciplines , locations and educational backgrounds. These professionals continuously strive to communicate with one another.
Consequently, there’s beauty in the conversation we are begin today, together, as we always do.
Eventually, we identify three key elements characterizing our conversations. The sound, pace, and cadence of our dialogue and our remarkable team’s energy keep us moving forward, together. Even when things become difficult.
- First, in order to create a dynamic IT OT convergence highway, our business table becomes more collaborative than we are used to. We invite the most open minded and flexible people to sit with us. Together, we contribute ideas, processes, theories, tips, tools and “what if’s?”
- Next, the members of our business table are open to change. Even though yes, this change makes them uncomfortable to move that one millimeter outside their current level of professional comfort.
- Also, the IT OT convergence highway is not linear, by any stretch of the imagination. How can it be? This convergence involves resources – human, software, engineering and equipment – which are constantly combined and recombined. Always changing, always anticipating “What’s Next?”
In listening for the sound of IT OT convergence pathway, you capture the heart and soul – The Voice – of your organization. That Voice is where value resides.
Right now, the road to our IT OT convergence highway may be more chaotic than organized, noisier and disjointed than streamlined and efficient. All innovation starts this way.
However, as we sit down at the business table together and discuss these issues and make hard calls and difficult choices, we evolve as business people of worth.
Can you feel it? Do you welcome it? Is this the type of workplace environment that you’ve been wanting to become a member of?
Our highway twists and turns and subsequently pokes holes in corporate silos and professional disciplines. We create a common vocabulary. Yes, we also develop respect for the talents and insights that each of us bring to the business table day in and day out.
Because in spite of all the technology, engineering, software and machinery that characterize the industrial Internet of Things, there are people, too.
And the last time I checked, people do business with people. You see, ultimately the IT OT convergence pathway is the roadmap for customer success. Without that element to our dialogue, we are strictly transactional.
Our goal? Capture the sound and spirit of the people traveling along the IT OT convergence highway. Let’s humanize their voices and contributions within the industrial Internet of Things ecosystem. Together. Can I count on you to join me?
Babette Ten Haken is a catalyst, corporate strategist and facilitator. She writes, speaks, consults and coaches about how cross-functional team collaboration revolutionizes the industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) value chain for customer loyalty, customer success and customer retention. Her One Millimeter Mindset™ programs draw from her background as a scientist, sales professional, enterprise-level facilitator, Six Sigma Green Belt and certified DFSS Voice of the Customer practitioner. Babette’s playbook of technical / non-technical collaboration hacks, Do YOU Mean Business? is available on Amazon. Visit the Free Resources section of her website for more tools.
Image author: JJAVA Image source: Fotolia
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