BELGIUM: After a nice sumptuous supper, Jerome enjoys George’s recounting of his Father’s adventures as the ‘Three Men in a Boat’ sit down for some cigar and some chat.

George tells how his father was traveling with another fellow through Wales and how one night they stopped at a little inn, where there were some other fellows and they joined the other fellows and spent the evening with them. They had a very jolly evening and sat up late drinking, and by the time they came to go to bed, George’s father and his father’s friend were to sleep in the same room, but in different beds.

They took the candle, and went up. The candle lurched up against the wall when they got into the room and went out. They had to undress and grope into bed in the dark. This they did but instead of getting into separate beds they both climbed into the same one without knowing it – one getting in with his head at the top and the other crawling in from the opposite side of the compass and lying with his feet on the pillow.

There was silence for a moment and the George’s father said: ‘Joe!’

‘What’s the matter, Tom?’ Joe’s voice said from the other end of the bed.

‘Why, there’s a man in my bed,’ said George’s father, ‘here’s his feet on my pillow.’

‘Well, it’s an extraordinary thing, Tom,’ answered the other; ‘but I’m blest if there isn’t a man in my bed too!’

‘What are you going to do?’ asked George’s father.

‘Well, I’m going to chuck him out,’ replied Joe.

‘So am I,’ said George’s father, valiantly.

There was a brief struggle, followed by two heavy bumps on the floor, and then a rather doleful voice said: ‘I say, Tom!

'How have you got on?’

‘Well to tell you the truth, my man’s chucked me out.’

‘So’s mine! I say, I don’t think much of this inn, do you?’

When you talk to Peter, you feel the same feeling of having been so ridiculously drunk that reality has been a blur and some hollow abstract has been masquerading as reality instead. It’s easy to blame the inn, and that’s what most in the industry have been up to.

All those bromidic conferences, all the platitudes about business-IT alignment suddenly feel like some haute-couture piece of art that everyone has been admiring, only because everyone else is admiring. The big question is ‘Do you really even understand that canvas?’ ‘If not, why don’t you have the guts to question what the world is humming?’

Well, that’s how he is. He will answer a question with a bigger question. He would remind you of the brash but honest irreverence and maverick ways of Howard Roark. The way only an architect like him can talk about feeble foundations.

An entrepreneur, advisor, lecturer and writer, Peter Hinssen is more than one of Europe’s most sought-after thought leaders on the impact of technology on society and business. Peter’s first book 'Business/IT Fusion' (2008) over 5000 copies of which have been sold, shook the think tank’s pot violently by stressing on how to completely rethink and radically transform IT. 

Peter is currently involved as a coach to executives to develop future innovation perspectives, and is a board advisor on subjects related to innovation and IT. He develops executive education workshops and awareness sessions and lectures on IT Strategy and Technology & Organization future challenges at various business schools such as London Business School (UK) and TiasNimbas Business School (Netherlands), and is a visiting faculty at Antwerp Management School (Belgium).

In this really refreshing and but-I-used-to-think-‘that’- altering conversation, Peter cogently and entertainingly attacks at some Ellsworth Tooheys of the world as we talk about a lot of issues like why IT jobs are seen as a punishment, why CEOs ignore IT, commoditization, CIO-CFO equations, Carr’s prophecy, why he admires P&G, why Cloud might be used to bypass IT, SOA’s relevance and a lot more tips and questions that CIOs should ask themselves. Bet you will enjoy.

You talk and write very passionately about the very existence of business-IT alignment as the new wave. And all this intriguingly in an era where this concept is industry’s favourite chewing gum. Help us see it from your lenses.

That’s why my book attracted some controversy too. I can’t say – Yes, I see the emperor’s clothes when he is naked. Well, if I see companies that I work with, what comes up as an important factor is the question – who does an IT head report to? Most often CIOs still report to CFOs. It’s easy to understand why, because when IT started as a function in 1970s, EDP projects were all about financial data. That’s how this order emerged. But look around now. Technology has stopped being just technology. Every tech-component now connects to business projects. Today many companies are appointing business guys into IT areas, with no tech understanding whatsoever. And this is a wake-up call for CIOs to reshape their attitudes and not only their skills.

Still you feel that IT-Business alignment is a cliché?

It is more so because of the frustration that CIOs feel while aligning with business and the very pressure. They are extremely frustrated with lack of progress. Yes, the alignment talk is a new utopia. The more I talk to CIOs about this subject, the more I feel that this so called alignment rhetoric has turned IT into butlers. Treating technology in the way it is being treated now, has numbed them and taken the spirit out of IT departments.

And yet, IT is still a staff function for many. Like HR. So, the very talk of aligning it is actually insulting its core value, is that how it is?

In most companies, finance and IT are treated like a support department. That is hence, fundamentally wrong. Departmental thinking is so deeply engrained, it amazes us. Unless we change that, we would never be able to change the status –quo.

Do you know anyone who is doing it right?