If your IT and business teams don’t always see eye to eye, you’re not alone. Many organisations struggle with this disconnect, leading to project delays, budget overruns, and missed opportunities. You might see it play out in familiar ways: a business team launching a marketing campaign without consulting IT, only to find the company’s systems can’t handle the surge in traffic. Or an IT department rolling out a new tool that employees don’t use because it doesn’t align with how they work. This misalignment is as frustrating as it is costly. It slows down innovation, affects customer experience, and makes it harder to compete. Addressing it requires more than just improving communication. It takes a structured, strategic effort to bring technology and business priorities into sync.
Why IT and business often operate in silos
At the core of the issue is a difference in focus. IT teams are responsible for system stability, security, and efficiency. Their success is measured by uptime, risk management, and performance. Business teams, on the other hand, are focused on growth, customer experience, and revenue. Their priority is speed to market and staying ahead of competitors. Without alignment, these priorities clash. Business leaders often feel that IT is too slow and resistant to change, while IT teams see business requests as unrealistic or technically unfeasible. The result is inefficiency, duplicated efforts, and an inability to respond quickly to market demands. The consequences go beyond internal frustration. McKinsey reports that 70% of digital transformation initiatives fail due to a lack of alignment between IT and business objectives. When projects take longer than expected and costs spiral, businesses struggle to deliver the technology-driven experiences customers expect.
The impact on employees is just as significant. Gartner data shows that over half of employees feel disengaged when the tools they rely on don’t meet their needs. If outdated processes or unclear priorities slow teams down, productivity drops, and frustration grows. From a competitive perspective, misalignment is a major risk. A Harvard Business Review study found that companies with strong IT-business collaboration are 2.5 times more likely to be market leaders. Speed, agility, and innovation come from alignment. Without it, competitors move faster, customers look elsewhere, and growth stalls.
How to bridge the gap
To close this divide, IT and business teams need to work from a shared playbook. But where do you start?
Start with communication and a shared language
Misalignment often stems from misunderstanding. IT teams don’t always have insight into business goals, and business leaders don’t always grasp technical constraints. Cross-functional workshops, joint planning sessions, and shared digital platforms help ensure that priorities are shaped by both perspectives. Regular check-ins aren’t enough—teams need structured ways to collaborate on an ongoing basis.
Define shared goals and prioritise business value
One of the fastest ways to improve alignment is to redefine success. If IT is measured purely on system performance and business is focused only on revenue, teams will continue pulling in different directions. A more effective approach is setting shared KPIs that combine technical performance with business outcomes, such as customer satisfaction, revenue growth, or operational efficiency. Technology investments should also be assessed through a commercial lens. If an IT project doesn’t connect to strategic objectives, it risks becoming a costly distraction. Evaluating initiatives based on ROI, customer impact, and competitive advantage ensures that technology drives business success rather than just supporting it.
Leverage agile to keep teams in sync
Traditional IT projects often follow a rigid, linear process that can take months (or even years) to deliver results. By the time a solution is ready, business needs may have already changed. Agile methodologies help prevent this by promoting frequent communication, iterative development, and continuous collaboration. With Agile, IT and business teams work together in shorter cycles, making adjustments as priorities evolve. This ensures that technology solutions stay relevant and aligned with business objectives.
Drive cultural change with leadership buy-in
Process changes alone won’t fix the problem. True alignment requires a shift in culture, where collaboration becomes the norm rather than an afterthought. This shift needs to be driven from the top. Leaders must model the right behaviours, breaking down traditional hierarchies, encouraging cross-functional teamwork, and ensuring both IT and business perspectives are valued in decision-making. Your teams also need the autonomy to collaborate directly rather than relying on leadership to mediate every discussion. Encouraging informal interactions – whether through shared office space, team-building activities, or joint projects – helps build relationships that foster better communication and problem-solving.
The competitive advantage of getting it right
The business case for IT-business alignment is clear. Research from Deloitte shows that companies with integrated IT-business strategies outperform their peers by 20% in profitability. Forrester data shows that organisations that improve collaboration between IT and business reduce project delays by up to 50%, while McKinsey found that aligned teams bring innovations to market 25% faster. In real terms, that means new products, services, and features get to customers before competitors even see them coming. Beyond efficiency, alignment fuels better customer experiences. When IT and business teams work together seamlessly, organisations can respond faster to customer needs, personalise services more effectively, and eliminate friction points in digital interactions.
While alignment doesn’t happen overnight, taking the right steps now can set your organisation on the right path. Start by evaluating where the biggest disconnects exist, whether in communication, goal-setting, or execution. At Sirocco, we work with organisations to bridge this gap, integrating technology with strategy to create a culture where IT and business work together seamlessly. We help businesses implement Agile ways of working, align technology investments with commercial priorities, and break down silos that slow growth. If your teams are struggling with misalignment, let’s have a conversation. Schedule a free consultation to discuss your IT-business challenges and explore how a structured approach can unlock measurable improvements in efficiency, innovation, and customer satisfaction.
This Sirocco blog post examines the prevalent struggle organizations face when aligning their IT and business teams. It pinpoints differences in priorities and focus as primary causes of the disconnect, where IT emphasizes stability and efficiency, while business concentrates on growth and revenue. The misalignment leads to project delays, budget overruns, employee disengagement, and lost market opportunities. The post advocates for improved communication, shared goals, agile methodologies, and cultural changes driven by leadership to bridge this gap. By fostering collaboration and valuing both IT and business perspectives, companies can improve profitability, reduce project delays, and enhance customer experiences.
