Bridging IT and business: techno MBAs

As we more fully enter the information age, technology is creating new competitors and new strategic options for business. Moreover, as operations become more critical in a world with shorter product cycles and lead times, the importance of integrated information systems becomes apparent. On the other hand, businesses often have many disparate systems in place for order fulfillment, shop floor management, and accounting. Businesses would like to model this information and have it accessible for coordinated analysis of processes, finances, and business goals. Not surprisingly, suppliers of integrated enterprise systems are seeing tremendous sales growth. In general, companies are struggling to answer the questions: Are investments in information technologies paying off? How do we successfully manage the implementation of these new and complex systems? If you are a supplier of information technology, whether it be software or hardware, are there people in your organization who can help answer such questions? Do you have people who know business, understand technology, and have some feel for the pitfalls that occur when the two worlds collide? To fill the perceived gap, several universities have developed programs to produce these hybrid business managers with one foot in the business world and the other in the IT world