At the CAWorld keynote yesterday, Executive Vice President Ajei Gopal exhorted business and IT managers to forget about doing more with less.  He jokingly noted that eventually you’ll be doing everything with nothing. It occurred to me while looking at a demo of CA Oblicore Guarantee that the new mantra for aligning business and IT organizations should be “getting the right thing for the right price.”

The right thing depends on the business goals and constraints. A business goal to make bicycles would be constrained by the fact that their supply chain is set up to make cars. The price of achieving the making bicycles goals is the effort of building a production plant and setting up a supply-chain for bicycle parts. After reviewing the pricing for their options the business could determine that the right thing for the right price is to make motorcycles by converting part of their existing production plant and using parts from some of their existing suppliers. Why should achieving IT-related business goals be any different?

Too often IT organizations are in the business of saying “No” to business ideas with little explanation as to the business constraints which prompt that answer. My thought is that IT organizations should be in the business of saying “Yes, here are your options and pricing, let’s figure out which one is right for you.” In other words, let us focus on getting the right thing for the right price.