I have written in the past about the need for a new acronym in our industry. Yes, another one. When it comes to managing the branch, organizations need to appoint a so-called “chief branch officer,” or CBO.

We have found there is little consistency in how organizations make technology decisions for their branch offices. Some rely upon central IT, others rely on local staff - even administrative assistants - at the branch locations, and others rely on bureaucratic committees to make architecture and product decisions.

In Nemertes’ yet-to-be released Service Delivery & Management research benchmark by my colleague, John Burke, he found that 44% of organizations have a central IT architect, 25% have no central IT architect, and 31% relies upon a group to make IT architecture decisions.

Even more interesting: 43% of companies with central IT architects do not let those individuals set policy, leaving 57% of central IT architects with the ability to execute on a policy.

Bottom line? 43% of the 44% of companies who have central IT architects are doing the right thing! Companies need a central IT architect who is empowered to set overall strategy and policy throughout the organization.

A supporting group is helpful for advising that central architect, but you know what they say about too many cooks in the kitchen!

Once that central IT architect sets strategy and policy, it’s up to the CBO to implement said strategy in all the remote locations. Without a central strategy and without an individual tasked with implementing that central strategy, companies are setting themselves up for failure.

Branch locations wind up being islands with different products, technologies, and policies. With a growing number of employees working at branch locations, consistency is key to delivering centralized applications in a predictable, high-performance manner.

IT executives consistently point to convergence and collaboration projects as one of their top 3 focal areas for 2006/2007. They need to take the opportunity to reassess the organizational structure of the IT department, as many already have. In doing so, they are converging voice and data teams, forming new collaborative application teams, and making sure a central IT architect sets policy for a cohesive network.

But they need to take the next step, too, and identify a CBO or architect to implement a consistent IT strategy in every branch location.