A point is all that you can score

So says “Frankie” and he’s right. There’s a lot of verbal warfare and point scoring going on at the moment when it comes to the so called “digital revolution” but one phrase is being shouted louder that all the others – “go bimodal”.

It’s almost religious – Yea, verily, hast the almighty passed amongst you with two tablets. One shall be called the “slow tablet” for it doth contain all that is legacy and difficult and complex and old.  And the other shall be the “fast tablet” for it containeth all that is good and pure and connected and social. And lo! the fast tablet shineth in the night sky and all thy congregation shall be drawn to its glow whilst the slow tablet withereth, shrouded in the clouds of legacy.

Perhaps that is a tad old testament but sometimes it seems like this Bimodal IT is a religion – take all the old stuff, everything you’ve done before, data, transactions, resilience, security and so on, and put it in the slow lane. Meanwhile everything that you apparently need in this digital age lives in this new fast lane – including customer interaction, analytics, user journeys and the like.

And what about the people. Imagine coming home to your family: “Guess what?! Today I was put in charge of “Slow IT”. Yep, I know it sounds a bit dull but we call it “Mode 1” and it’s where all the really important stuff lives – honest. It’s the heart of the company but, well it’s just, er, slow… Incidentally we also hired this young chap from Amazon to run the new division – Fast IT, although I’ve been told we can also call that “Mode 2”.

How do you think these “Fast” and “Slow” tribes will get on?

Sorry folks but this Bimodal IT stuff has the potential to do even more damage than that old chestnut of business and IT alignment – remember that one? Everyone running around focussing on alignment instead of the working together on the important things like customer delight, revenue, employee engagement and growth. The fact that when you focus on alignment you reinforce the very separation you’re trying to avoid was lost on most people. And yet here we are driving wedges into organisations again, only this time with a new risk – tissue rejection.

Does anyone actually work in a bimodal company? Of course not. Business by its very nature is multimodal with customer needs, services, adoption rates, behaviours, products, business models, threats, competition and a myriad of other factors all moving at differing speed across different sectors, industries, and geographies. This digital tsunami hasn’t changed our world into a simple two-speed model. It’s accelerated and polarised the challenges we already faced and added a whole lot more – so to offer up Bimodal IT as the solution is almost laughable.

If digital is anything it’s the challenge to create new capabilities that are responsive, flexible, agile and hyper connected – from back to front and front to back and all points in between across the entire enterprise. It’s new solutions that work seamlessly with customers, partners, supplier and even competitors to sustain and grow existing business while creating new products and services at a variety of speeds that reflect the needs of diverse markets.