DEVOPSdigest

IT Revolution announced the availability of its newest book, War and Peace and IT: Business Leadership, Technology, and Success in the Digital Age.

Authored by Mark Schwartz, Enterprise Strategist at Amazon Web Services (AWS), this book explains why and how executives and business leaders must create a shared strategy with their IT organizations to drive innovation, enhance their competitive positioning, increase revenue and delight customers.

Gene Kim, founder of IT Revolution and co-author of The Phoenix Project, The DevOps Handbook, and Accelerate, said: "In War and Peace and IT, Mark shares his unique perspective and experiences with business leaders looking to lead their company into the digital age. He shows how they can harness the expertise and innovation already taking place in the IT organization and throughout the enterprise to achieve business objectives."

"The enterprise must stop thinking of its ideas as requirements to be given to the IT organization and instead, treat them as hypotheses about what will accomplish their business goals," said Schwartz. "My life as a CIO and experience working alongside executives from the world's largest enterprises have led to the proven strategies I articulate in War and Peace and IT to help business leaders overcome impediments they face in transforming their organizations to seize opportunities in the digital age we live in today."

In the war for business supremacy, Schwartz shows we must throw out the old management models and stereotypes that pit suits against nerds. Instead, business leaders of today can foster a space of collaboration and shared mission, a space that puts technologists and business people on the same team.

For business leaders looking to unlock their enterprise's digital transformation, War and Peace and IT provides clear context and strategies. Schwartz demystifies the role IT plays in the modern enterprise, allowing business leaders to create new strategies for the emerging digital battleground.

It is time to change not only the enterprise's relationship with technology, but its relationship with technologists. To accelerate, enterprises must bring technology to the heart of their work, for just as technology is causing this disruption, it is technology that provides the solution. Unlike Napoleon, it is time for business leaders to come down from the hill atop the Battle of Borodino and enter the fray with the technologists, for that is where the war will be won or lost.

Mark Schwartz is an Enterprise Strategist at Amazon Web Services and the author of The Art of Business Value and A Seat at the Table: IT Leadership in the Age of Agility. Before joining AWS he was the CIO of US Citizenship and Immigration Service (part of the Department of Homeland Security), CIO of Intrax, and CEO of Auctiva. He has an MBA from Wharton, a BS in Computer Science from Yale, and an MA in Philosophy from Yale.