A look at how IT can drive Innovation

SMA Technologies’ Kathy Hooker Burress discusses how changes in IT can drive innovation in other areas of an organization

Type “changing role of IT” into Google and you’ll get close to a half-million hits. There’s no shortage of online discussion on this topic. You can learn how IT is transforming from a technology gatekeeper to a service broker, how the CIO is changing from a plumber to a producer, or how IT is changing from “the infrastructure team” to “the next big idea team,” to name a few. In short, IT is being called upon to be the innovators.

All of this sounds very enticing, doesn’t it? Not only is IT becoming increasingly important to the success of any organization, the field of IT is becoming much more interesting and exciting. All signs are that this is a great time to be in IT.

Credit unions are no exception to this rule. For years I’ve been saying that technology is the great equalizer among financial institutions. With the right tech investment, any credit union of just about any size can go head to head with the biggest banks in the country.

What’s changed over the years, however, is that having a solid technology investment today means more than buying the right software package, installing it on a server, and maintaining it. Today’s CEOs, COOs and CFOs look to IT to come up with inventive solutions that are tailored to the specific needs of the credit union. In other words, the modern IT shop doesn’t just maintain; it creates. All of the Google results I mentioned above point to this very fact.

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