By Minda Zetlin

What does it take to create a true partnership between IT and the business? More than just alignment, declares Peter Hinssen, Managing Director of consultancy Across Technology in Ghent, Belgium.

“Many IT organizations work at getting aligned, at treating their business contacts like customers,” says Hinssen, who is also a Lecturer at the London Business School, Entrepreneur in Residence at consultants McKinsey & Co., and author of Business/IT Fusion: How to Move Beyond Alignment and Transform IT in Your Organization (Mach Media, 2008). “But that work doesn’t always result in a real partnership; instead, IT becomes an almost perfect butler. A butler will cater to your every need, but he won’t challenge you. He won’t ask: Are we going in the right direction?”

In fact, alignment is only a starting point, Hinssen says. It’s important for at least some of the organization to go one step further, into what he calls a “fusion” of business and IT. “Fusion is not just the new word for alignment,” Hinssen insists. “Rather, it means blending IT into the business, no longer treating IT as a supplier, but completely integrating IT into the business.”

Other IT management experts agree. Dennis Lasley, VP of Accent Global System Architects, an IT business integration consulting firm, says that in an ideal world, the whole concept of business-IT alignment would be unnecessary. “It’s interesting that we’ve spent so much time on it,” he says. “Think about other operations within the business. How much do we worry about aligning hiring and firing decisions to the business? It’s a non-issue. We may acquire technology that we don’t need, but how often does a business hire an employee it doesn’t need?”

Further, says Hinssen, IT fusion can also help enterprises not only ride out, but also excel in the current economy. He points to a recent article from management consultants McKinsey & Co. that suggests an economic downturn is a good time to invest in IT, rather than cut back. “IT can be a main driver in positioning a company for the recovery,” Hinssen says.

In fact, the challenging economy could give CIOs an impetus to create this IT-business fusion, Hinssen thinks, pushing change to the forefront and helping to strengthen IT. “The current crisis will foster a need to fundamentally question everything,” he explains. “It’s a horrible thing to have to lose your job or deal with significant layoffs as a CIO, but this time can also be an excellent opportunity to reposition IT into something that will bring even more value for your company.”

To get started creating fusion, CIOs and other IT executives need to become change agents, capable of helping a company think strategically about its mission and how IT can help accomplish that mission, Hinssen says. This includes measuring the true value of the IT department. “IT typically has brought more change to companies in the last 20 years than any other function,” Hinssen says. “We’ve been instrumental in reshaping the way people work today.”