Assignment:
The IT department is no different from an organization, in that it must continually re-evaluate and sometimes reinvent itself to continue to deliver value to the organization. As a reply to this message, discuss how IT must re-evaluate its capabilities, people skill sets and other resources to be in alignment with overall organizational objectives. Include any examples from the marketplace in your discussion.
It seems to me that IT is always in a state of change, updating systems to be in compliance with the latest laws or regulations, modifying, updating or consolidating tools and platforms to make things more compatible, easier to use, or just reduce the number of overall systems, and to keep up with competition. In my organization I can think of a few examples from the past couple years. Legacy systems are slowly, slowly being switched over to a new system that makes more sense to new reps - the old system runs in DOS windows, the new one is a desktop application. As features are able to be moved over, they are eliminated or restricted on the legacy systems. One application used for digital imaging of paperwork that tied directly into a work queue and request system was just switched over so it is no longer a stand alone application, but built in to the mainframe which should make compatibility with the work queue and request system easier, and by being part of the mainframe means that processing is easier and uses fewer resources; it also means that instead of using 2 or 3 applications for a single task it is now all rolled into one. My firm provides an application for clients that is an advanced trading platform; about a year ago a new updated platform was released that got us back to parity with our competitors - the old version certainly worked but in terms of appearance and some functionality it was lagging behind what other firms were offering. Even with these updates and changes nothing is "finished" it's always a work in progress as the systems infrastructure might change, the business side might need new features that require changes, and software used by customers needs to always be updated in order to stay competitive.