Track description

Under the heading of digitization, new and further developments of digital technologies lead to significant changes in the economy and society. A key feature of a digitized corporate world is that digital technologies are no longer used merely to support business processes, but are increasingly becoming an inherent component of products, services, and business models. While information technology has long been an important production factor for most companies, digital innovations are now leading to a radical transformation of entire industries. On the one hand, digital business model innovations offer companies the opportunity to conquer established and new markets with good ideas. On the other hand, many companies are increasingly at risk of becoming victims of the disruptive effects of digitization. Accordingly, many companies are currently undergoing digital transformation.

In this context, the development and implementation of IT strategies and the management of the IT function are more than ever before becoming critical tasks for the success of the entire company. While corporate IT has so far concentrated on translating the requirements of the specialist departments as effectively as possible into high-quality IT services and operating these services, it is now increasingly required to play an active role in shaping the entire company. To achieve this, IT must address the requirements of customers and partners of the company, evaluate and introduce IT innovations and adapt the IT landscape to the changed needs. In addition, the development and implementation of innovative services increasingly requires the integration of business and IT. In addition to involvement in innovation processes, traditional IT management tasks are also changing: developments such as cloud computing are simplifying the outsourcing of elements of the IT value chain. The management of IT infrastructures and IT operations can be left to specialized providers who have the necessary expertise and can realize economies of scale.

These developments bring about a gradual change in the roles and capabilities of today's IT functions, which is also reflected in changed structures, processes, methods and governance mechanisms. Accordingly, many new and interesting questions arise regarding the social, organizational, technical and economic aspects of strategic IT management and organizational change. Previous findings as well as established models and theories of business informatics must be questioned and further developed against the background of these developments.